18 Sept 2026
China specialist in first of series of interviews about historic US-China bilateral
Former Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary China Group Mark Logan has said the UK's international standing has been undermined by domestic political instability, as attention turns to a major diplomatic set-piece between the United States and China.
Speaking to Petrie Hosken on TalkTV ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington next week, Logan described the trip as "a massive deal," noting it will be Xi's first state visit to the US since 2015. He said the meeting would likely be dominated by the question of Taiwan, pointing to a shift in the Trump administration's language on the issue at an earlier summit in May.
Logan drew a sharp contrast between the two leaders' approaches, arguing that Xi is playing a long game while Trump is constrained by domestic political pressures and an approaching midterm election cycle. "One will be thinking much more in the short term, the other in the long term," he said.
He also suggested that Xi's political position gives him little incentive to make concessions, telling Hosken that slipping approval ratings could leave Trump "a potentially much diminished president" within weeks.
Logan said China's leadership views Western democracies' dependence on elections as a structural weakness, contrasting the decades-long vetting process for senior Chinese officials with what he called the "popularity contest" of Western politics.
He cited the rapid collapse in support for former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, under whom Logan served as an MP, as an example of how quickly Western public opinion can turn.
On the wider geopolitical picture, Logan argued that Western policymakers had "taken their eye off the ball" for years while China invested heavily in initiatives such as the Belt and Road and BRICS, positioning itself as an alternative pole to US-led global institutions.
He recalled his own experience working at the British consulate in Shanghai in 2015, when then-Chancellor George Osborne backed the UK's entry into the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, calling it "a massive moment" in China's efforts to build institutional influence.
Logan pointed to recent Pew polling showing a growing number of countries now view China more favourably than the United States, a shift he said reflected the cumulative effect of years of strategic investment by Beijing.
The interview, recorded ahead of Xi's Washington visit, also touched on AI, Iran, and the implications of the summit for the UK's own foreign policy standing.
Full interview can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/r1ABSN6yJGQ?si=hj29qepAGvqfwiul