Nobody in the UK media is asking what this means for Britain.

Rakesh Xaman’s piece on China as the real winner of the Iran war is worth your time. The structural argument is solid, the historical analogies earn their place, and the “three boards” framing captures something most Western coverage is missing.

It’s written from a US vantage point but the UK dimension is more acute and right now it’s being ignored.

In January, the government approved China’s “super embassy” near the City of London, overriding repeated local authority rejections on security grounds. Days later, Starmer flew to Beijing. Chatham House noted at the time that China’s leverage over the UK “exercised through economic ties and dependencies” is “harder to detect and more difficult to unwind once embedded.” That was before Beijing brokered the Iran ceasefire.

It matters even more now. This week the UK’s cyber chief confirmed the most serious attacks against British infrastructure are coming from Russia, Iran, and China, the same three governments the UK is simultaneously running active trade relationships with as the “Special Relationship” with the US becomes ever more toxic.

Chatham House put it plainly in January, saying the UK cannot avoid deepening ties with Beijing, but the risks of doing so without a coherent strategy are significant. The Iran ceasefire has made those risks structural rather than theoretical.

We’re watching this thread closely. The connection between the embassy approval, the Starmer visit, and China’s post-war diplomatic positioning hasn’t been properly joined up by any UK outlet yet.