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Twenty years ago this month, Hong Kong was returned to China - an event that is often considered to mark the formal end of the British Empire.
Yet there seems to be some reluctance, back home in the UK, to admit that the British hegemony of the 19th and early 20th centuries is now a thing of the past.
Last year's European Union membership referendum provided ample evidence of this, with the so-called Brexit vote won, at least in part, because of a certain xenophobic nostalgia for the "good old days".
Despite the country's extended period of decline in power and influence over the past century, many Britons still refuse to accept this new reality. Fervent nationalism, embodied in such anachronistic "anthems" as Rule Britannia and expounded by certain elements of England's right-wing press, is rife - especially among the older generation.
In the four years since I left, my homeland - once synonymous with statecraft and stability - now looks to be foundering.
In addition to referendums, the British public has twice in as many years been asked to decide on who should run the country. Such a rash of polls hardly smacks of solidity, nor does it serve to inspire confidence in Western-style democracy.
Contrast that with China, which over the same period has taken on an ever greater role in world affairs with the Belt and Road Initiative and its commitment to combating climate change in the face of the United States' withdrawal.
The supposed leaders of the UK, meanwhile, keep calling election after election, vote after vote, each only really serving to make the country weaker.
Both the Brexit referendum and the latest election - which wasn't due for another three years were called needlessly by Britain's current party of government either in the hopes of healing internal rifts or tightening its grip on power. Neither plan worked. Instead, through such miscalculations and hubris, the future of the UK now looks to be in real doubt.
In just two short years, Britain will exit the European Union. That's not a long time to negotiate all the various border, tariff, trade, citizenship, immigration and other issues that need to be sorted out.
If the country's newly enfeebled government fails to reach a deal in time, then it will go over what's been described as the "cliff edge" - cut off from some of its most important allies and biggest economic partners.
Proponents of Brexit hark back to an imagined past, conjuring up a romanticized view of an imperial Britain that traded with the world. But this is a fallacy.
As Danish finance minister Kristian Jensen noted last month: "There are two kinds of European nations - small nations and countries that have not yet realized they are small nations."
And it was none other than Sir Henry Tizard, chief scientific adviser to the UK's ministry of defense, who said Britain is "not a great power, and never will be again".
He wrote those words in 1949. Perhaps it's time his country heed them.
Greg Fountain is a copy editor and occasional presenter for China Daily. Before moving to Beijing in January, 2016 he worked for newspapers in the Middle East and UK. He has an M.A in Print Journalism from the University of Sheffield, a B.A in English and History from the University of Reading and a Basic Food Hygiene Certificate from a pub in South Yorkshire.
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