Two Chinese warships visited London this week for the first time — and threw a party. Their air defence missiles, anti-submarine rockets and banks of radar may have looked menacing but this was hard power wrapped in cotton wool.
On deck the speeches were as sweet as the pyramids of moon cakes laid out on tables for guests. Wang Zhongcai, the rear admiral commanding the two frigates, evoked the “warm and bewitching banks of the river Thames” and paid tribute to the masterpieces of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.
There was no reference to the UK’s bouts of 19th century “gunboat diplomacy”, which for Beijing remain livid humiliations. Neither was there any mention in official remarks of several areas of strategic friction between the two countries.