Here is the question. Can a state that counts itself America’s most reliable military ally also be China’s special friend in the west? Ask George Osborne, Britain’s chancellor, and the answer is an unequivocal “yes”. Others — in Whitehall as well as the White House — take a different view.
Mr Osborne has been touring China, including the troubled Xinjiang province, where Beijing’s authority is challenged by native Uighurs. When the chancellor was not signing commercial deals he did everything to skirt controversy. His aim was to set up the signing of a string of financial and investment agreements when President Xi Jinping pays a state visit to Britain in October.
Mr Osborne promised a £2bn taxpayer guarantee if Mr Xi puts Chinese cash into a new nuclear power plant in southern England. He also offered Britain as a test bed for China’s own nuclear technology. Whitehall officials think that the nuclear project has been rendered uneconomic by shale oil and gas and by changing patterns of energy use. The chancellor will have none of it.