China Trip Debrief, FAC Report, Chinese economy
A Beijing to Britain briefing
Hello,
On Tuesday morning, I dialled into a briefing with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. Over the course of half an hour, he reiterated why he was going to be the first Foreign Secretary to visit China in half a decade, which can be boiled down to one sentence, quoted in The Financial Times later that day: “To consciously withdraw and not utilise our standing in the world, the authority and voice that we have, that would be seen as a sign of weakness, not a sign of strength.”
How convincing is that argument to backbench MPs? Not very. Some, like IPAC’s Iain Duncan Smith, didn’t want the Foreign Secretary to go in the first place. He told one paper “The problem with our position right now is it smells terribly of appeasement. It’s like we want more business, therefore we don’t want to upset the Chinese too much.” Duncan Smith voices a concern some have over the Government’s new China approach - is this simply a return to business as usual? For his part, Cleverly would argue a resounding no. The Foreign Secretary raised human rights concerns in every meeting and discussed the plight of Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan. Additionally, the UK is not exactly the frontrunner here - the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union have all sent senior officials to the country multiple times.
The crux of the issue remains that both sides are talking past each other, and wrongly interpreting each other’s arguments. Try as it might, the Government is unable to convince Parliament that it is getting any meaningful action on the issues they say matter to them, like human rights or domestic security. What is the point of engaging if you are not getting a single tangible result, MPs and activists ask? Simply releasing a reactive statement condemning Chinese human rights abuses at home or overseas repression abroad does not satisfy backbenchers. They point to sanctions put in place by allies such as Australia or the United States and ask why the United Kingdom has not done similar, or why the Government seems to drag its feet on punishing transnational repression when it flares up. From Downing Street’s perspective, ministers appear to struggle to get past the blocking point that the bilateral with China goes beyond just human rights, and that there has to be an element of calculated risk when engaging with Beijing. As Cleverly has indicated, the Government sees China as a difficult, challenging and different - but ultimately necessary - country that the UK and others must work with to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues, like climate change or AI standards. The calculation they have made is that the Chinese Government understands that it needs to work with other countries on these areas too. However, despite the fact that a second business China-related business visit is already underway (more on that further down the briefing), the Government has failed to set out what progress would look like with China in any of the areas it has highlighted as being engagement priorities beyond trade.
Ultimately, this trip was not about moving the dial in one swoop - either in Westminster or Beijing. But strategy requires clarity and communication.
— Sam Hogg, Editor
In this week’s Briefing Note, we look at:
The Foreign Secretary’s trip to China
A new FAC report on the Indo-Pacific
Is China’s economy really stumbling?
One last thing: keep an eye on the Solomon Islands