Hello and welcome to the bunker I'm Gavin Esler ever since President Barack Obama announced a tilt

in US foreign policy towards the Pacific and were specifically towards the rise of

China as a great power. The complex relationship between Beijing, the West,

and our allies has grown even more complicated. In conflict studies, one of the first lessons

is that it's necessary to understand the motivations, fears and

history of any potential adversary.

That raises a fundamental question for Britain.

We have been drawn to, traded with, and at times in conflict with China since Elizabethan times.

What beyond a few cliches do we really know of the entanglements of our shared history?

Well, I'm delighted to be joined in the bunker by Professor Kerry Brown,

director of King's College London's Lough China Institute,

and the author of a new book that shines a light on our 400-year entanglement. The Great Reversal, it's called

Britain, China and the 400 year contest for power. Professor Brown joins me now.

Welcome to the bunker carry. Thank you very much good to be here.

Could we begin with some of the cliches? I mean as you say in the book we know about

China we get tea from it we like the food and the country is in some ways the workshop of the world but I mean

those are all true but they're only a tiny tiny part of the complexities of our

relationship on they that's true I think in the history that Britain's had with China, one thing that strikes,

you know, anyone that looks at it is British people have always been quite intrigued by the fact that China is different and the ways in which it's been

defined as different are varied over the centuries. In the past it was because of religious

differences. This was a country that didn't have a uniform religious system and obviously

Christian, predominantly Protestant Christian Britain found that intriguing and very hard to understand.

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