Many want their leaders to take a moral stance when it comes to foreign affairs. Yet at the same time we also expect them to act in the country's best interests. On the surface this looks an impossible combination. To avoid hypocrisy do we not have choose which strategy we really want?
Should we conclude that trade with China is vital to future prosperity and turn a blind eye to its repression of minorities? Or is the moral high ground in fact in our long term interests as it weakens China and challenges its aggression? Or then again, is all talk of morality just a cover for a US power play?
Former Under-Secretary General of the UN Shashi Tharoor, former president of the UN Security Council and author of The New Asian Hemisphere Kishore Mahbubani, and foreign leader writer for the Guardian Tania Branigan consider the future of trade with China.