CRG Weekly: PM foreign policy speech, hardening public perception and G7 talks
News from the China Research Group
In case you missed it: Professor Rana Mitter joined Tom Tugendhat on Tuesday for a discussion of China’s foreign policy, the state of UK-China relations and Beijing’s perception of the UK. Catch up via our podcast ‘Talks on China’. We share transcripts and recordings of events on our website.
The week in review
Rana Mitter spoke powerfully in this week’s CRG event about soft power and China’s favourable perception of the UK. Recent British Council polling from last year shows that Chinese under-35s rate the UK as the second most attractive country globally, behind only France. Education is a core driver. And new UCAS data showed 25,810 applicants from China to British universities this year - up 20% from 2020.
But perceptions are highly imbalanced. The hardening of British attitudes towards China was clear in this week’s major new British Foreign Policy Group report, which found that the rise of China now sits alongside climate change and international terrorism in being perceived as one of the top threats to the UK. 78% of the population mistrusts China’s ability to act responsibly. But the question of how to respond to China was far more ambiguous; while 38% support cooperation on issues like climate change, just 13% support Chinese involvement in UK infrastructure.
Accusations of ‘international bullying’, lodged by Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, may be doing China’s public perception no favours. Davey had called for government action in relation to a proposed boycott of next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics and found himself on the receiving end of Global Times editor Hu Xijin’s scorn. Tim Davie, the head of the BBC, spoke out publicly against China’s BBC World News ban and received support from the EU. A German state also pulled CGTN because it had been distributed under the now-revoked Ofcom licence. According to MERICS, CGTN may decamp to Brussels.
5,000 Hong Kong residents have signed up for the BNO visa in its first 2 weeks in spite of a disinformation campaign targeting those seeking UK visas. A sizeable number of Hong Kong residents born after 1997 are ineligible for a BNO visa; their route to British citizenship is more difficult. Hong Kong’s immigration came under scrutiny following last week’s reports that Chinese police ran the Canada visa application centre; New Zealand said it was aware of the practice. Elsewhere in Hong Kong, more key pro-democracy figures went on trial under the National Security Law and the Bar Association asked for clarity over rules that could prevent residents from leaving.
Boris Johnson drew attention to the UK’s action on Hong Kong in a strong foreign policy speech on Global Britain, delivered yesterday at the Munich Security Conference.
We have consistently spoken out against China’s repression of the Uighur people in Xinjiang province - and we will continue to do so. We have introduced new measures to ensure that the supply chains of UK companies are not tainted by the violations in Xinjiang. After China broke a treaty and imposed a repressive national security law on Hong Kong, the UK offered nearly 3 million of the territory’s people a route to British citizenship. We acted quickly and willingly – with cross-party support at home – to keep faith with the people of Hong Kong.
It makes a stark change from last year when neither the PM nor his foreign or defence minister turned up to Munich. This year’s speech, worth reading in full, sets out a foreign policy vision driven by ‘a faith in liberal democracy, the rule of law and free markets, which surely comprise the great trinity of human progress’.
Friday also saw G7 leaders convene for the first time under the UK’s presidency. The White House briefed that China would be a key talking point, while other leaders focused on pandemic preparation and economic recovery. The joint readout made one mention of China on economic terms, largely focusing on vaccine cooperation.
Vaccine diplomacy is now in full flow. So far, more of China’s vaccines have gone abroad than been kept in the country, fuelling Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s criticism of vaccine stockpiling by rich countries. But democracies are beginning to step up; Boris Johnson pledged yesterday to donate most of the UK’s surplus vaccine supply to developing countries, alongside existing funding commitments of £548m to COVAX. Biden will pledge an immediate $2 billion donation to COVAX. And Macron called for richer countries to send 5% of their current vaccine supplies to developing nations.
A test of cooperation lies ahead: the UK proposed that the UN Security Council to call for a ‘vaccine ceasefire’ to allow deployment of vaccines in conflict areas. China and the US will have to agree for the statement to pass.
In brief
Parliament returns from recess on Monday. The Commons Defence Select Committee published a report recommending that any investment in the defence supply chain from countries falling outside of an approved list, which would not include China, should be blocked.
There were a series of interesting international announcements on China this week, many of which flew under the radar: concerns over cyber espionage in the Netherlands, a rebuke of Huawei in Finland’s critical infrastructure, warnings of economic leverage and surveillance of Chinese nationals in Estonia and, most strikingly, comments from the head of Canada’s intelligence agency calling out China’s ‘strategy for geopolitical advantage’. Canada launched a Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention, which was co-signed by 57 other states.
More emerged on last year’s derailed Ant IPO: The WSJ reported that a government investigation into Ant’s opaque ownership revealed that some of the biggest IPO beneficiaries were potential rivals to Xi and his inner circle.
Clubhouse will review its policies after revelations that vulnerabilities in the app’s infrastructure could allow audio to be accessed by Chinese authorities. Bytedance has been allowed to walk away from its Oracle deal in the US and will look to list its Chinese video-sharing app Douyin in New York.
New national unity laws are set to be implemented in Xinjiang. It emerged that London’s City Hall and the Department for International Trade both held talks to partner with iFlyTek, the US-blacklisted AI company with links to surveillance in Xinjiang.
SCMP reported that German exports of textile machinery to Xinjiang were up 2763% from 2017. But Germany’s government reached an agreement on a new Supply Chain Act.
Boris Johnson called for transparency over the origins of COVID-19 and for the establishment of a pandemic treaty. The Chinese embassy rejected the Prime Minister’s claim, however, that it was ‘fairly obvious’ that the virus originated in Wuhan. The WHO investigation continues.
Huawei continues to lobby against its exclusion from 5G in the UK. It donated £60,000 to overcome the ‘digital divide’ in education, and Huawei-commissioned research found that poor internet quality was holding back a quarter of UK schoolchildren.
Weekend reads
Virtual control: China’s digital renminbi plans could allow Beijing to leverage its currency for state surveillance and control, James Kynge and Sun Yu write in the FT.
Africa Drifters: A snapshot of the lives of feipiao (非漂, ‘Africa drifters’) who work on Chinese-run construction projects across Africa in Made in China.
Confronting Chinese state capitalism: A CSIS panel event chaired by Jude Blanchette featured some of the most provocative and insightful thinkers on China’s economy.
The Great Expulsion: The Wire follows the decline from a ‘golden age of reporting’ on China and its ramifications for journalism and politics more broadly.
Abandoning profits, bolstering reputations: Elisabeth Braw argues that western companies should leave China to avoid being complicit in Uyghur forced labour.
Research snippets
The US Chamber of Commerce’s ‘Understanding US-China Decoupling’ report found that decoupling could wreak havoc on the US economy: if 25% tariffs covered all bilateral trade, GDP would take a $190 billion hit; if half of US FDI in China was sold off under decoupling measures, damage to GDP could be up to $500 billion.
James Sullivan’s latest RUSI commentary focuses on the government’s 5G diversification strategy. Key points include: threats to interoperability, a key pillar of the government’s diversification strategy; removing barriers to entry through incentives; contributing to global standard-setting, where China currently leads.
UCSD research covered in Wired examined found that AI algorithms could learn censorship of certain words and phrases. In comparing algorithms trained on Wikipedia (blocked in China) and Baidu Baike, Baidu’s state-censored equivalent, words like ‘democracy’ were found to have vastly different connotations and usages.