James Kynge

clear that China lost no opportunity to make propaganda capital out of this move at the expense of the United States.

Let me just tell you a couple of things that the Chinese media was saying.

The China Daily, which is an official Chinese newspaper, encouraged the Canadian government, Ottawa, to adopt what it called, quote, strategic autonomy from Washington.

And the longer quote was...

If Ottawa still chooses to subject its China policy to the will of Washington again in the future, it will only render its previous efforts to mend ties with Beijing in vain.

So it was a very clear warning that the Canadian government should not backslide, having made this visit and expended all this political capital to cozy up to Xi Jinping, that it shouldn't backslide from this position in the future.

Even more extraordinary comment came from a Chinese academic at Renmin University in Beijing.

His name is Cui Shoujun, and he said that Canada was

must be feeling a lot of unease toward the U.S.

these days because, quote, if the U.S.

can claim Greenland, then it might lay claim to Canada.

I mean, just sort of extraordinarily bold statements coming out of Beijing.

I mean, just a reminder that this is an official newspaper, the China Daily.

And academics in China have a sort of semi-official status.

I mean, they're allowed to put their interpretation on things, but they're not allowed to stray too far from central government thinking in Beijing.

So I do think these are really very interesting.

Just before I come back to you, Alice, let me just go into Keir Starmer's visit at the end of the month.

That is also going to be a really big moment in UK-China relations if it goes ahead.

This is because it will be the first visit by a UK leader to China since 2018.

And because the visit is coming across, as it were, the issue of this Chinese mega embassy in London.