Britain turns to the east

British Prime Minister David Cameron, in the midst of global change and geopolitical shift of power visited China. Before that the Chinese leaders had received the European Union leaders in Beijing and the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang met the leaders of Central and Eastern Europe in a summit at Bucharest in Romania.
David Cameron who is known as Lord Cameron for his aristocratic behaviour tasted Chinese tea and played ping pong. He had led a hundred-member delegation and signed agreements of co operation including infrastructural projects that might change the face of Britain, home of Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.
It is significant in the context of the new German coalition's foreign policy declaration that took note of Obama administration's pivot Asia policy that heralds disengagement from Europe. The growing anti EU feelings symbolised by the Conservative Party and the Republican Party of USA want to retain the glory of the victory of the Second World War under thumb, keeping 'the continent -- the continental countries of Europe under thumb. But Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia want to be normal countries manifesting the normal behaviour of sovereign nations.
China finds both opportunity and calamity in these developments. United Kingdom won the Second World War in alliance with Russia and China. India was its dominion. That dramatically changed after the Second World War. India became independent, two years after that the communist revolution in China triumphed and it joined the Soviet Union in what was called the end of imperialist domination. India along with Egypt, Indonesia, and, Yugoslavia launched the non aligned movement which is today the largest bloc in the world politics.
As the Snowden and Wikileaks disclosures showed, the Anglo Saxon Five still maintain cohesion and their distrust for the rest of the world. The five, Britain, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are English speaking countries upholding the spirit of British democracy for which they fought the two world wars and the cold war. It was to maintain this supremacy that they resorted to global spying. And it was a disgrace for the British democracy.
The Hay Movement which held a festival at Dhaka in which a British Pakistani revolutionary Tariq Ali was one of the distinguished guests, upholds the spirit that British Empire was the greatest revolution in human history that demolished the national frontiers in all the continents. Obviously in this school of thought Reagan and Thatcher would be world's greatest revolutionaries not Lenin and Mao.
According to the British philosopher of 17th century John Locke who had great connection with Hay River valley, the birthplace of British civilisation observed that the ideas not the body that matters most. But did he observe that the ideas too change?
David Cameron the British Premier had turned to China at a time when the ideas of confrontation and conflagration are undergoing drastic change in a changing millennium. The Scottish independence strategy is creating the concept of Disunited Kingdom.
The mighty Empire has dwindled to tiny colonies   Gibraltar (one and a half squire miles with twenty-nine thousand people), Falkland (two and a half thousand square miles with two thousand people), Cayman Islands, Bermuda, St Helena and Ascension. None of them are willing to leave the Empire as they are too small to do it.
Yet over Gibraltar and Falkland, Britain is landing in trouble with its old enemy, the Spanish. Spanish speaking Argentina claims Falkland and fought a bloody war over it. It was the Nepalese Gorkhas who helped Britain to retake it and the Qataris and Kuwaitis paid for it. This summer Britain sent its mightiest naval flotilla to the East of Atlantic when it landed in a row with Spain over formation of artificial reefs across Gibraltar to enlarge its land. The British had done the same in Singapore and Hong Kong which are now mega metropolis. At last Britain came to understanding with Spain to refer the matter to the United Nations on November 6. The British fleet has gone home.
But the greatest crisis that Britain faces is the Scottish referendum this year. The British Empire was launched with the annexation of Scotland three hundred years ago. The other four, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand did not exist then. From there Britain succeeded to build a world empire unparalleled in history.
Calcutta in India and Hong Kong in China with the assets and blood of India and China helped build that empire.
David Cameron, the pragmatic aristocrat does not swim in the past. But he must seek his answer at home where racism and economic stagnation challenge the very foundation of the British society. USA the biggest of the five has now a black president. People of British origin constitute only 13 per cent of US population, in Canada it is 28 per cent. In Australia and New Zealand, it is still high -- 70 per cent and 56 per cent respectively. But the Chinese communities are growing both in number and economic might.
That is why Lord Cameron's visit to China was so important, the Bermuda Sun of the remote Island of the Atlantic which harbour an important Chinese community observed.