A Meeting of the Conservative Foreign & Commonwealth Council (CFCC).
The CFCC met at the House of Lords on Monday 20th May, followed by a dinner, for a talk by Mark Logan MP on ‘Why and how the UK should actively engage with China’. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, Patron of the CFCC, presided.
In introducing Mark Logan, who became MP for Bolton at the last election by defeating the incumbent Labour MP by the tenth narrowest majority in the country, Lady Nicholson referred to the size and importance of China on the world scene and to the background expertise and experience of Mark Logan to address CFCC Members on the complex and often misunderstood subject of Sino/ UK relations. She noted that he is a Mandarin Speaker and that before becoming an MP, he had served at the British Consulate General in Shanghai where he had worked for the Foreign Office.
In opening his talk Mark Logan acknowledged that the warmth of Sino Relations in evidence during the golden Osborne/ Cameron era had since gone in the wrong direction in terms of tone. To even pose a question of why should the UK have engagement with a powerful country that is a Member of the UN Security Council and is the manufacturing factory of the world, demonstrates the misdirection of the tone.
The Integrated Review of the relationship had concluded that the UK has a choice of three approaches to adopt for China: compete, align or engage. His personal view is that we have to engage; we have been looking in the wrong direction and worryingly, if it wants to, China could simply ignore the UK at a time when other European countries are trying to step up their engagements. This is obviously not helpful to UK international trade policy.
The UK has strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific region inclusive of Japan, Australia and Singapore and China has increasing interests in South East and Central Asia as well as in the Global South and Middle East. There has to be a regular programme of bilateral face to face meetings with China on subjects of mutual interest such as on climate change and green technology, for instance, where UK/Chinese interests align.
A concerning trend is that in internal debates about China, UK parties tend to talk about themselves as seen from their own perspectives rather than understand how China might be looking at relationships from its standpoint.
In the UK there appears to be an underlying fear of China but, it should be noted, that the greatest fear is fear itself.
In UK debates on China, the approach when looking at Chinese companies such as Tik Tok and Huawei has been one of not only fear but also pessimism, whereas it is the innovation and optimism that is required. We need to compete - and where appropriate collaborate - with China not just in politics and rhetoric but also very much so through science and innovation.
The UK has much to offer the world particularly in the areas of science and technology and in the traditional areas of financial and legal services and services generally. The Chinese know this well from which they wish to learn, and there is an imbalance between the Chinese trying to learn more from us than we from them and this needs correction which can be better achieved through positive action by the UK in its approach to China relations.
An example of the imbalance is with students. 200-300 thousand Chinese students study in the UK compared with a handful of UK students in China and this imbalance applies also to language learning numbers and trade visits. Not said, but implied, there needs to be a greater knowledge in Parliament of China.
Q& A followed Mark Logan’s address.
In his full and frank and animated responses, it was clear that in the UK a greater understanding of China is required and generally (and the UK is not alone amongst western nations) there is a tendency to want to view China through their own perceptions rather than what is actually there
Baroness Nicholson thanked Mark Logan for his informative talk and expressed the need to have such expertise in Parliament. Melissa Crawshay - Williams was very warmly thanked for organising such a timely and interesting discussion.
William Knight
23.05. 2024
