Decoupling China

6.50am London / 12.50pm Beijing

Last November, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the so-called golden era of relations with China was over, warning that Beijing’s move toward even greater authoritarianism posed a systemic challenge to Britain’s values and interests. “Let’s be clear, the so-called golden era is over.” (Nov 28th, 2022). 2022 marks the 50th Anniversary of the Establishment of China-UK Ambassadorial Diplomatic Relations.

Around 4-5 days after Sunak comments, China’s plans for a giant new embassy opposite the Tower of London have been unanimously rejected by local councilors on the grounds they pose a security risk to local residents, in a surprise decision that comes amid growing concerns over Beijing’s diplomatic activity in the United Kingdom. 

In 2-weeks consecutives of August, UK media The Economist reported the fall of China.

And now, James Spencer Cleverly TD VR will become the first British foreign secretary to visit China for five years next week (after Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt, now Treasury / UK Finance Minister / Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2022), in what will be a test for his government’s efforts to rebalance the relationship with Beijing. In last February, Cleverly said at the United Nations Human Rights Council that civil rights in Hong Kong were under threat after Beijing’s imposition of the security legislation in 2020. On the domestic front, the Conservative government has gone through a succession of short-lived leaders and cabinets, left the European Union, and has had to deal with an increasingly vocal and hawkish parliament, which is sceptical of engagement with China.

Efforts to engage China have also been hampered by the mysterious disappearance of former foreign minister Qin Gang.

Cleverly was reportedly set to travel to China in July to meet Qin before the latter suddenly vanished from public view.

Cleverly said in his address that under the national security law, independent media outlets had been forced to close down, while those who spoke out, including journalists or businessmen such as the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, had been arrested.

Cleverly is expected to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday, although no final date has been set for a meeting with Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi exchanged views on China-UK relations with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on the sidelines of the ongoing UN General Assembly in New York last September, or around 2 months before Sunak comments about end of golden relation UK-China. 

The British Foreign Office declined to comment on whether Cleverly would travel to China this month, but Beijing’s former ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming confirmed the trip on social media.

“With regards to UK Foreign Minister James Cleverly’s visit to China at the end of this month, we value growing stable and mutually beneficial relations with the UK and are open to strengthening bilateral exchanges with the UK,” Liu wrote on Twitter.

It will mark the first visit of Britain’s top diplomat to Beijing since Jeremy Hunt travelled in July 2018, but the world and the relationship between the two countries has changed dramatically in the intervening five years.

Tensions have flared over Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong, China’s relationship with Russia, Britain’s close security ties with the United States, and Beijing’s rising assertiveness over the course of the pandemic.

“Given both the length of time between the last foreign secretary’s visit, and how dramatically China has changed in those years, Cleverly’s visit will be watched closely. It will be the first time the British government’s new China approach – engage, align, protect – meets reality on the ground in China,” said Sam Hogg, the founder of Beijing to Britain, a weekly intelligence newsletter.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has advocated a more nuanced approach than predecessors Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, calling for Britain to “evolve” its foreign policy.

In November, he said the so-called golden era of cooperation between the two countries had ended and that the UK needed to focus on economic security in its relationship with Beijing.

Meanwhile, Cleverly said in a speech at London’s Mansion House in April: “Our task is to shape the course of future events, not succumb to fatalism. And we must face the inescapable reality that no significant global problem – from climate change to pandemic prevention, from economic instability to nuclear proliferation – can be solved without China.”

This trip will look to “project a new-found British confidence towards China”, with the Mansion House speech and the recently revamped Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy at the heart of the approach, said Sophia Gaston, head of foreign policy at the think tank Policy Exchange.

“Like all our allies, the UK is now pursuing a policy of stabilisation with China, in which the imposition of significant new security measures and acts of economic competition are balanced with a more restrained form of public rhetoric,” Gaston said.

“Despite the growing awareness of the profound risks China poses, it is not credible to suggest that the UK should avoid all interaction with Beijing, as this is understood as a necessary precondition to a safer global security environment.”

It is a balance being sought by many European countries. In Brussels, the debate is dominated by the “de-risking” agenda of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who faces a challenge in ensuring that each of the 27 member states’ voices are represented in dealings with China, despite their vastly different views of the world’s second economy.

In Britain, no longer part of the EU debate, a major challenge in forming a coherent strategy is in assuaging the pro-business and China-sceptic wings of the governing Tory Party, said Ruby Osman, China lead at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

“The party has the full spectrum of views from China hawks to pro-business MPs, it can be a challenge in making a policy that suits them – more difficult than bridging the gaps with other political parties, like Labour,” said Osman.

Backbench MPs have called for Sunak’s government to take a more aggressive approach, particularly on human rights issues.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Cleverly will push for China to drop sanctions on members of parliament and academics, while he will also be under pressure to raise concerns over freedoms in Hong Kong.

A refresh of Britain’s defence and diplomatic strategy in March described China as an “epoch-defining challenge” to the international order, but did not go as far as describing China as a strategic threat – a move some MPs support.

A long-anticipated report by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee in July found China had successfully penetrated every sector of the British economy, in part because of a willingness by governments to accept Chinese investment “with few questions asked” until recently.

“The UK is now playing catch-up – and the whole of the government has its work cut out to understand and counter China’s ‘whole-of-state’ threat,” the report found.

Cleverly has pushed back against critics, telling the House of Commons foreign affairs committee in June that his job is to “engage foreign governments, including governments we disagree with.”

“We do so to highlight the areas where we disagree, which I have done, whether it be on Xinjiang, Hong Kong or the sanctioning of our parliamentarians. I have raised this issue in every single meeting and conversation that I have had with representatives of the Chinese government, and will continue to do so,” Cleverly said.

Sunak’s government has tried to walk a fine line between being tough on human rights issues, such as the controversial national security law for Hong Kong and the treatment of ethnic Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang, while expanding economic ties with the world’s second biggest economy three years after leaving the EU.

“In parliament, critics of the government will view his trip from a starting position of scepticism; many will look to see how forcefully he raises the significant security and human rights issues the Chinese government presents to the UK and its own people,” said Hogg at Beijing to Britain.

Observers urged caution on what could be delivered during a visit that is expect to last for one day beyond setting the tone for future engagement. Nor is it guaranteed that the trip lays the ground for Sunak to go to China.

“It probably depends how this visit goes,” said Osman. “It would be good to have a leader-to-leader meeting, but given how long it has taken to set up this trip and the fact that we will be in British election season before long, the political heat Sunak would face from going to China at that time might make it unlikely.”

Gaston said that Cleverly’s job in Beijing will be to “establish new parameters of dialogue, in which engagement itself is not used as a bargaining chip against other key issues”.

“The UK government must confidently express the parameters of economic investment and trade that will be acceptable in our new security landscape, and set out its expectations for cooperation around issues such as climate change,” she said.

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