The visit is official. Xi Jinping lands in North Korea next week. First Chinese leader in 14 years. Timing is everything. This is a signal. To Washington? To Brussels? To us.
Westminster is jittery. Not publicly, of course. But the whispers are real. “They’re testing the alliance,” a senior Foreign Office source told me, hunched over a pint in a St. James’s pub. “If Beijing can pull Pyongyang closer, our entire Indo-Pacific tilt gets a wobble.”
The timing is surgical. Sunak’s government is still basking in the glow of AUKUS. They’ve just signed a new defence pact with Japan. Deepened cyber cooperation with Seoul. The messaging was clear: Britain is back in the Pacific, lock, stock, and two carrier groups.
Then Xi books his trip. Suddenly, our carefully laid table looks less well-set.
Downing Street is playing it cool. “We welcome any dialogue that reduces tensions,” a No. 10 spokesperson said. Standard fare. But the reality is different. There is real concern that Xi will dangle economic carrots in front of Kim. Infrastructure. Energy. The sort of lifeline that makes a hermit kingdom slightly less hermit-like. And slightly more pliable to Chinese interests.
“The North is a pawn,” a former ambassador told me. “But a pawn that can become a rook if China decides to promote it. And with Russia’s distraction in Ukraine, there’s a vacuum. Xi will fill it.”
So what does this mean for London? First, the deepening of ties with Seoul and Tokyo is now a sprint, not a marathon. Expect announcements in the next fortnight. Joint naval exercises in the East China Sea. A new undersea cable deal with Japan. A trade mission to Seoul focused on semiconductors.
Second, the nuclear question. The UK has been quietly pressing Japan to host more regular B-52 rotations. That conversation just got louder. And South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk Yeol, is an eager partner. He’s been pushing for an expanded role in NATO’s Indo-Pacific dialogue. Expect a phone call from the PM this week.
But there’s a darker undercurrent. “What if Xi offers Kim a path to normalisation without denuclearisation?” a retired intelligence chief mused. “That’s the nightmare. A nuclear North Korea, bankrolled by China, with a seat at the table. It would break the non-proliferation regime. And our security architecture assumes that regime holds.”
The Foreign Office is not convinced the trip will yield a grand bargain. “Xi is playing a long game,” a mandarin said. “He’s reminding us all that China has cards in every pot. But Kim is a harder nut to crack than any state banquet suggests.”
Still, the very drama of the visit is a message. Beijing is watching our moves in the Pacific. And it is pushing back. Not with bluster. With a summit. The clearest signal yet that the era of Western dominance in Asia is over.
For Sunak, this is a test of the “Global Britain” narrative. Can we stay relevant when the two biggest players on the block sit down? Or will we be left outside, knocking on a closed door?
The answer may come sooner than we think. Look for a flurry of diplomatic activity from London this week. Private dinners. Quiet visitors. And a new urgency in every official’s voice when they say the word “Indo-Pacific.”
The game is on. And Pyongyang has a new player at the table.
