James Cleverly began his speech on China earlier in the week by saying that he is often asked to sum up the country in a phrase – even a word. And he quoted three views that others put to him. One was friendly: “partner”. Two were not: “threat” and “adversary”. That imbalance said a lot about the context right at the start.
The Conservative Party has travelled a long way since David Cameron promised a “golden era” of UK-Sino relations in 2015. MPs and members have become increasingly wary of the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic tyranny, contempt for norms on copywright, ownership and property, and international rise – not least because of its conduct in Hong Kong.
China’s reluctance to allow the origins of Covid to be investigated has played a part. The China Research Group was set up by two Conservative MPs in 2020. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China is co-chaired by another. Both take a critical view of the country’s Communist leadership.
The three MPs in question were sanctioned by China in 2021: Neil O’Brien, Tom Tugendhat and Iain Duncan Smith. Two other Tory MPs were also named: Nus Ghani and Tim Loughton. After backbench rebellions, talks and concessions, the Government had watched the previous year as the Commons declared that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs.
Boris Johnson’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy stopped short of describing China as a “threat”, labelling it instead a “systemic competitor”. Liz Truss wanted the review rewritten and the T-word inserted. Rishi Sunak reversed her approach and reverted to Johnson’s.
That came in the wake of competition between the two to out-hawk each other during last summer’s Conservative leadership. Truss pledged to “publicly recognise genocide in China”. Sunak promised to “ban all 30 of China’s Confucius Institutes in the UK” (which he will do, according to the Security Minister – no less trenchant a critic of China than Tugendhat himself).
Seen in the light of this unfolding story, Cleverly’s speech looks like, in the words of one insider, “an attempt to wrest back the narrative from the China Reseach Group”, and solidify the Prime Minister’s return to Johnson’s approach. But this is a broth with a lot of cooks.
The Home Office securocrats see China through the lens of subversion. The Treasury, through that of trade: Sunak found himself under fire from Truss during the leadership contest over Treasury plans for a new economic agreement. The new Business and Trade department takes the same view – unsurprisingly.
The Foreign Office has its idealist corners, which worry about human rights, and its realist ones, which argue that the UK can’t simply turn its back on a country with so big a presence (in the Middle East now, directly; and in the Ukraine war, indirectly), its expanding Belt and Road programme, and so important a hold on many critical minerals.
Then, inevitably, there is climate change, medical research, and nuclear proliferation – not to mention tech, where China would not observe any Elon Musk-style pause in AI, and Taiwan, a Chinese invasion of which would have alarming implications for the world’s economy.
One view of Cleverly’s speech is that the Foreign Office itself drove it, which is why China ended consuming nearly all of an address usually crafted, at the Lord Mayor’s banquet each year, to a foreign affairs tour d’horizon. According to this take, King Charles Street wanted to give a clear steer to diplomats overseas and Cleverly is angling for a visit to China himself.
Then again, Sunak himself made a foreign affairs speech at the same venue last year promising “robust pragmatism” towards China. (So although the Foreign Secretary may be unwilling to produce soundbites about China, the Prime Minister has no such inhibitions.)
One view from Downing Street is that Britain must stay on the same page as America – in other words, as Joe Biden. His administration has gone out of its way to stress that it isn’t “looking for conflict or a new Cold War”. This take would be consistent with the Prime Minister seeking to bury Truss’s approach to foreign policy.
That’s certainly happened elsewhere – for example, over Middle East policy, where she floated moving Britain’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jersualem. Cleverly and company have been quietly hosing down indignant Arab ambassadors. Number Ten is certainly keen to remind all comers of the Aukus American-UK-Australian plan for new nuclear-powered attack submarines.
Meanwhile, Britain has joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), China wants to do so too – and that could, when a decision comes, mean the UK in the spotlight (if whatever government holds office then doesn’t seek to push the decision on to Japan).
A vocal part of the Parliamentary Party, and of the Party membership too, will prefer the Truss approach to the Sunak one. I’ve found few outside the usual suspects willing to disagree with the three policy priorities that the Foreign Secretary spelt out – strengthen our national security protections, deepen our co-operation with partners, and “engage directly with China”.
What I have found is criticism of what wasn’t in the speech. “There was no analysis of how China wants to change the world order, and how we should respond to its attempts – nothing substantial about the emerging struggle between freedom and autocracy,” said one experienced foreign affairs hand.
There wasn’t much about critical minerals, either – perhaps because Cleverly was unwilling to highlight the degree to which China has us over a barrel. “It’s all very well warning China that if it trashes human rights in Hong Kong we’ll get very cross, but where are the sanctions?” asked another MP.
As it happens, Britain has, along with other countries, sanctioned Chinese government officials for human rights violations in Xinjiang. But when a speech contains sentences like “China is one of the few countries which can trace its existence back…to 221BC, when it was united by the Qin Dynasty,” you know you’re reading a speech written not to ruffle diplomatic feathers.
To what purpose, though? A MP who has long kept an eye on China has an arresting view. “Frankly, the Chinese Government couldn’t care less what we say, and we waste a lot of time convincing ourselves that it’s persuadable when it isn’t. We should just get on with doing what we need to do – and deal with subversion here, dependence, property theft.”
Speaking softly and carrying a big stick is a cliche. Such an approach would be more like carrying a big stick – or at least as large a one as we can wield – and not saying very much at all. Show, don’t talk – presumably by implementing a programme like the five-point one that Tugendhat set out on this site in 2020.
In this vision of policy, Britain would quietly get on with diversifying our student intake from abroad, counter Chinese economic intervention more vigorously, build new trade alliances, seek to neutralise Belt and Road, and bolster electronic independence. Admittedly, the Government is doing quite a bit of it anyway.
The question is whether or not further amplifying the Government’s approach to China serves any useful purpose. Cleverly would argue that it does: his speech cited safer animal feed, more business opportunities and Russian sanctions as examples. “He’s unusual among recent Foreign Secretaries in actually liking travel,” I was told this week. Next stop Beijing?