The UK government, meanwhile, was charged by its own MPs with putting trade before human rights, Theresa May having declared a “golden era” for Anglo-Chinese relations. The current Conservative administration has conveniently forgotten events as recent as the past 18 months, and is claiming to have always strenuously decried China’s human rights abuses. To think about what that would look like in concrete terms, we need to turn to the last cold war, which, at certain points, undid the left. Lastly, of course, it achieved its aim: the end of the arms race, which itself signalled the end of the cold war. The first is that universal human rights have to remain the ultimate goal.

Source: The Guardian July 20, 2020 15:00 UTC