I dealt with China for most of the ten years I worked for the British Foreign Office from 1998. The one conclusion I drew from my experience over those years was that it didn’t take much to stumble into complexity. Britain and China have a vast historic hinterland. In 1839, British forces inflicted the first Opium War on China, and British politicians enforced the unequal treaties which ushered ... (read more)
Kerry Brown
Kerry Brown is Director of the China Studies Centre, and Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney. He leads the Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN), funded by the European Commission, and is an Associate Fellow on the Asia Programme at Chatham House. He is the author of over ten books on China, the most recent of which is The New Emperors: Power and the Princelings in China.