British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer calls it a “sophisticated” relationship. Behind closed doors President Xi will call it payback. One of Starmer’s many weaknesses is his total lack of historical and cultural knowledge. He lives in a narrow stovepipe of human rights law in which power is the enemy. President Xi Jinping is the very essence of twenty-first century autocratic power for whom Starmer’s ‘sophistication’ is kowtowing, nothing more, nor less.