United Kingdom Foreign Secretary James Cleverly's visit to Beijing this week, the first high-level exchange between China and the UK in five years, is widely perceived as being a tentative effort to repair bilateral ties.

Vice-President Han Zheng and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met separately with Cleverly in Beijing, both expressing hope that the UK government would work with Beijing to enhance mutual understanding and trust.

Cleverly, on his part, said that the UK wants to keep lines of communication open and create an enabling business environment for pragmatic cooperation. Prior to his visit, Cleverly had made remarks to the UK media which raised expectations that his visit would herald a thaw in the frosty relations between the two countries.

His remarks include that "it would be a mistake to isolate the world's second-largest economy" and that "no significant global problem — from climate change to pandemic prevention, from economic instability to nuclear proliferation — can be solved without China". These suggest that the Rishi Sunak government has a more sober view of bilateral relations than its immediate predecessors, which on-the-boil ideologically were more intent on turning the heat up under the pot than fostering the UK's relations with key trade partners such as the European Union and China.

As a result, of course, those relations have fractured. Rather than continuing to invest in the "golden era" for ties that promised long-term returns, the UK government chose to buy the fool's gold claims of immediate gains promised by the US in return for it more provocatively playing the "Hong Kong and Taiwan cards".

The Sunak government's seemingly more rational and pragmatic perception of China offers a window of opportunity for the two countries to begin restoring trust and finding common ground on which to rebuild their cooperative relations.

Reinforcing this more sensible approach to ties, the UK is reportedly set to send a large business delegation to China to attend the upcoming China International Fair for Trade in Services, at which it will be the Guest Country of Honor. The representatives of more than 60 UK enterprises are expected to attend CIFTIS in search of new business opportunities.

Putting bilateral trade cooperation back on the right track is probably an easier task than bridging the current political differences between the two sides. But doing so would not only bring real benefits to the two sides, it would also bolster the resilience of bilateral ties, which in turn would provide a more stable foundation on which to build mutual political trust.

However, that foundation will always be shaky if the UK infringes on China's core interests and meddles in its internal affairs.