Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan attend a banquet held by British Queen Elizabeth II at the Buckingham Palace in London on Oct. 20./ Source from Xinhua News Agency

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By Hong Soon-do, Beijing correspondent, AsiaToday - Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Britain, which ended on Friday, is being evaluated as a successful event that opened a golden age of China-UK relations. It seems China and Britain have finally liquidated their love-hate relationship for over 175 years following the Opium War in 1840, and have drawn global strategic partnership. In other words, both countries have normalized their ties to an ally level.

Such assertion is likely to be true considering the tremendous hospitality that China's president Xi Jinping enjoyed during his four-day visit to Britain, which was the first state visit from the country in a decade. According to recent reports of foreign media and China's state media outlets, Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan arrived at Buckingham Palace in Queen's golden carriage. It was very rare for a visiting head of state to ride in the carriage considering that even US President Barack Obama or former President George W. Bush had not taken the carriage ride before. Besides, Xi was provided to stay at Buckingham Palace during his trip, and attended a banquet held by Queen Elizabeth II.

Considering that China and Britain made progress on economic cooperation including nearly 150 deals on power plant construction, energy, aviation, bio, finance, and other fields, the phrase golden age is not an exaggeration. The total value of the deals worth a whopping 40 billion pounds (KRW 70 trillion won). It seems clear that China is the one who will invest much money.

Of course, there is a flaw in Xi's trip. During his 11-minute speech at the parliament, none of the members of the UK parliament gave an applause to him, and there was no standing ovation until the speech was over. It's a clear evidence that China and UK have different views on political issues. Besides, UK media and political circles showed implicit concerns over China's human rights issues and tendency of seeking for supremacy. Considering this, it seems a bit early to say the golden era has arrived.