Why we are writing a corridor note
Every week something moves in UK–China trade that changes the answer to "should we go, and how". We are going to write it down, in both languages, for the founders who have to decide.
For six or seven years the honest advice to a Chinese founder looking at Britain, or a British founder looking at China, was: not yet. The politics were frozen, the visas were slow, and the people who could make an introduction had stopped making them.
That has changed, and it changed quietly. The first UK–China Joint Economic and Trade Commission since 2018 met last September. The Economic and Financial Dialogue resumed after six years. Britons can now enter China for thirty days without a visa. Total trade between the two countries reached £105bn last year, which makes China Britain's fourth-largest trading partner, and Chinese investment into Europe rose for the first time since 2016 - most of it greenfield, which means new companies being set up on the ground.
None of this is on the front page, and none of it tells a founder what to do. That is the gap this note is for.
What we will write about
Once a week, in English and in Chinese, one thing that moved and what it means if you are taking a brand across the corridor. Sometimes it will be a policy change. Sometimes a platform rule, a court case, or a competitor's opening. We will cite the primary source every time, because the trade press on both sides is full of numbers nobody can trace.
We will also write about the things that fail. We see the same three failures again and again: a story that was written for the home market and merely translated, an introduction that was never checked, and a company formed by an agent who should never have been trusted. Those failures have patterns, and the patterns are teachable.
Who it is for
Founders and the people who advise them. Chinese consumer brands that have proved themselves at home and are deciding whether Britain is next. British companies in healthcare, education and professional services, where the buyer in China has to believe you before they will pay you. If you are one of those, subscribe below, and tell us what you want answered.
The first proper note comes next week: what the re-opened corridor actually means, in numbers, for a brand that has not yet crossed it.
Sources: Department for Business and Trade, UK–China trade and investment factsheet, July 2026; HM Treasury, 11th UK–China Economic and Financial Dialogue outcomes, January 2025; MERICS and Rhodium Group, Chinese FDI in Europe 2024 update
One email a month. What moved, and what it means.
Trade, policy, platform and regulatory changes that affect a brand crossing between Britain and China, in both directions. No pitch, unsubscribe any time.
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