After two tumultuous years in UK-China relations, the UK has expressed its intention to revive and reset the relationships between the two countries.

Controversy over allegations of human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang and trade disputes involving Europe and the U.S. have recently caused a deterioration in exchanges between China and the West, but the UK has now expressed the desire to put these problems aside and have what Chancellor Rishi Sunak described as "a mature and balanced relationship" with China.

Specifically, the UK wants to relaunch the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, a summit that was last held in 2019 and then suspended for two years amid the spread of COVID-19 and political tensions between the two countries.

The idea, as explained by Sunak, is for the UK to keep "a principled stand" on issues contravening the country's values while at the same time allowing Chinese investments in Britain and accessing the Chinese market. 

It's the kind of 'compartmentalizing' that  Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, a trade diplomacy expert and Director of the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) believes could lead the West to adopt a new attitude towards China, a revolution led by the UK.

"If the UK can compartmentalize some of the diplomatic problems and the frictions that are now between West and China, and if the UK takes the first step, players like Japan and Western Europe would very soon join," Lee-Makiyama told CGTN.

He  believes that whatever the UK decides to do in its approach to China, it will soon be accepted and followed by other Western countries. 

According to Lee-Makiyama, the UK's ability to "distinguish the strategic issues that we still have on the table against the economic win-wins is going to play a huge part in unleashing a lot of investment going into China, as well as the Chinese interest in investing abroad."