History, as I have long argued, does not repeat itself—but it does rhyme. And the rhyme currently being penned in Pyongyang, where President Xi Jinping has descended upon the hermit kingdom like a Mandarin Caesar visiting a client state, should chill the spine of every British diplomat still clinging to the illusion of a rules-based order. This is not a mere state visit. This is a strategic act of theatre, a power play designed to remind the West that the post-1945 settlement is being rewritten, and we are not at the table.
Consider the optics. Xi, the undisputed hegemon of a rising empire, meets Kim Jong-un, the erratic despot whose nuclear ambitions have kept the world on edge. The British Foreign Office, in its usual state of flustered impotence, has muttered about 'leverage' and 'concern'. But this is worse than concern. This is a deliberate signal that China can, at a moment of its choosing, destabilise the entire Korean Peninsula, sending a tidal wave of refugees, nuclear proliferation, and economic chaos crashing into the West’s fragile sphere. The North Korean card is now a Chinese card, and it will be played not for peace, but for advantage.
We are witnessing the birth of a new bipolarity, and Britain—once the mistress of global diplomacy—is reduced to a carping spectator. The parallels with the 1930s are unavoidable. Then, as now, the established powers were caught in a fog of complacency, believing that treaties and good intentions could hold back the tide. Then, as now, a resurgent authoritarian state used a client to test the limits of the old order. Xi’s journey to Pyongyang is the 2024 equivalent of Hitler’s remilitarisation of the Rhineland: a step too far, but one that will be met with sternly worded statements and nothing more.
And what of the intellectual decadence that has so enfeebled our own society? We have spent decades dissecting our own history, apologising for our past, and celebrating diversity at the expense of unity. We have lost the will to assert ourselves, and our elites have coddled us with the fantasy that soft power and cultural exports can replace hard military and economic might. Meanwhile, Beijing and Pyongyang laugh all the way to the nuclear bunker. The British diplomat who thinks he can 'leverage' anything in this new world order is a fool with a degree in international relations and a delusion of grandeur.
This is not about empathy for North Korea or animus towards China. It is about cold geopolitical arithmetic: Xi’s visit solidifies the Sino-North Korean axis, granting Beijing a forward base for pressure on South Korea, Japan, and the US. It undermines any hope of denuclearisation. And it sends a message that the rules of the game are changing. The West, and Britain in particular, must awaken from its slumber. We need a foreign policy based on strength, not sentiment; on deterrence, not dialogue. Otherwise, the epitaph of our civilisation will be: 'They fiddled while Pyongyang burned.'
