President Xi Jinping (L, back) and British Prime Minister David Cameron (R, back) attend a signing ceremony of bilateral cooperation documents after their talks at 10 Downing Street in London, Oct 21, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

'A momentous shift'

The Financial Times said on Friday that the visit "marks a momentous geopolitical shift" and concluded that Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, whose September visit to Beijing prepared the ground for the visit, was taking a gamble that could secure London's future prosperity and "end up being particularly successful". But it questioned the timing, with China's economy slowing.

Some, such as Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard University and author of the recently published Kissinger: 1923-1968 The Idealist, believe that it's Britain, and not the United States, that now has the right approach to China.

"Many people I have spoken to in Beijing feel frustrated at the lack of clarity in US strategy," he said.

"I know that Kissinger, for one, believes there is only one way forward for US and China relations, and that is for them to be close and amicable, and I am hoping that Washington perhaps takes their key from London."

The best-selling author said that much of the debate about China's new role in the world ignores the fact that Beijing needs the West's help if it is to get through imminent and key stages in its development.

"The challenges that China's leaders face are daunting, and we need to be sympathetic to them as they try and grapple with them. The British approach is the constructive one."

One key challenge that China faces is the opening-up of its capital markets and financial system without having a 1990s Asian financial crisis-style destabilization of its economy, so that Shanghai can emerge as one of the major global financial centers of the 21st century.

After Xi's visit last week, London is in pole position to be world's largest offshore RMB center, which will help China through this process. The UK Treasury on Oct 21 became the first non-Chinese issuer of yuan sovereign debt.

John Ross, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China and a former director of economic policy for the mayor of London, believes this could mean that the UK is becoming a major new partner of China's and that talk of a "golden era" is far from rhetoric.

"China wants to build the RMB into a major international currency, but it will take time, perhaps 15 to 20 years, for it to develop Shanghai into a financial center to facilitate this," he said.

"It could, however, use either London or New York to internationalize its currency. You only have to contrast the reception they have had in the UK last week from (Prime Minister David) Cameron and British business to the hostility they consistently get from the US, to know which they now regard as the safer bet."