It’s quite something when the Chinese Ministry of Defence is more transparent than its British equivalent. Despite the Prime Minister on assuming office promising ‘transparency in everything we do’, a flying visit to Beijing last Wednesday by the UK chief of defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, only emerged via a Times scoop a day later.
Official silence from an habitually opaque UK MoD about the first such visit for 10 years ceded the information advantage to China, allowing it to paint a rosy, false picture that Radakin had discussed deepening engagement and cooperation with his Chinese equivalent, General Liu Zhenli. This in turn prompted outrage from UK China hawks who accused Radakin of engaging in ‘a ghastly game of appeasement’ prompted by a Labour government hellbent on ‘kowtowing to China’.
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