British Prime Minister Johnson attends a Chinese New Year reception at the Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street on Jan. 24, 2020.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking at a recent Chinese New Year event, said he was a “passionate pro-Chinese person. However, Conservative hawks on the backbenches of the British Parliament are happy to end the “golden age” of relations between Britain and China, citing national security concerns and China’s human rights record.
Advocates of British-Chinese cooperation will be pleased to learn that Johnson’s father and one of his half-brothers are on their side, The Sunday Times reported Feb. 28.
Stanley Johnson, 80, who has “a preference for China,” believes it is “vital that we talk face-to-face at this moment,” especially on the eve of the 2021 UN climate change conference (COP26). COP26). “This is such a big country that if China doesn’t achieve [net zero emissions] by 2050, it’s hard to see how the world can do it.”
Max Johnson, 36, the youngest of Stanley’s six children by his second wife, is a businessman living in Hong Kong who is keen to promote technology and investment from China, as well as green issues. The ambiguity of the relationship between Britain and China, he says, “creates hesitation, which means that people don’t necessarily invest. The idea that human rights are “the only issue that matters” is a “radical, irrational, crazy view.
Both men are bound by the belief that China is too big to ignore. In recent years they have used diplomatic channels to advance cooperation between London and Beijing. They have made this message public to counter the growing hawkishness in British public Life toward the country they love – China.
The story of the Johnson Family‘s decades-long relationship with the world’s most populous country begins in 1975, when Stanley visited China as part of an EU delegation. Mao Zedong was in charge,” he said. The Gang of Four was in power. Since then, I’ve been going back [to China] a lot.”
Five years later, Stanley wrote a book about China called The Doomsday Deposit, based on the imagined discovery of a nuclear fuel reserve in Manchuria (Guandong). Whoever controls these reserves will control the world.
The author, environmental activist and former MEP Stanley said at the Time that his current interest in China was less about global domination than about international cooperation, particularly China’s role in combating climate change. This year, China will host the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP15) in the southwestern city of Kunming, with the aim of setting targets to halt or reverse biodiversity loss.
I know that there are problems as far as the Uighurs are concerned,” he said. It’s right to draw attention to them. Nevertheless, China is the host of Kunming (COP15). And Scotland is still part of the UK. So it’s important that the Chinese and the British (who hosted COP26) talk closely now.” For Stanley, the inevitable priority is getting China to sign up to the international net zero target for 2050, not telling China how to behave. He said, “I’m sure you’ll find a lot of high-level engagement going on. I would certainly like to see that.”
He has also contributed to that engagement: he has met extensively with outgoing Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming, campaigned for the conference and participated in a Zoom farewell event in his honor last month.
Last February, he recalls, he and a friend who used to run the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds went to meet the “elegant tall gentleman (Liu Xiaoming). The trio talked about the Chinese mudflats. “We sat in our gorgeous seats and talked about the possibilities of carbon absorption in the mudflats. We sang the Flanders and Swann song: mud, mud, glorious mud, there’s nothing like it”.
Max was not yet born during Stanley’s first visit to China, although his ties to the country are arguably deeper. He graduated from Oxford University, as did his brother, and was the first Briton to study for an MBA at Tsinghua University in Beijing, whose alumni include Xi Jinping.
In Hong Kong, he worked for Goldman Sachs, advising British companies on their investments in the region. He works with the British Council and will soon be an “observer” on the China Britain Business Council, which will bring diplomats and business people from both countries into further contact.
On the current state of relations between the two countries, Marks is clear: “We’ve gone from an extremely optimistic outlook to a more ambiguous tone. And the next question is, where is it headed? I think it’s that ambiguity that needs to be clarified.”
“We need to have a multifaceted relationship with a country that is based on politics and economics, but also on human rights and cultural exchange. But that means not throwing everything out the window, because say, one of those issues is more important than all the others.”
Marks is uncompromising on Conservative-led groups in the British Parliament, such as the China Research Group, led by Tom Tugendhat, and The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China Policy, headed by Duncan Smith He said, “I’m looking at the China Research Group. I’m looking at the future – I’m taking a longer-term view,” he said. And you know, there are irrational factions in Westminster [the British Parliament] that, frankly, [are] thinking more in the short term and are perhaps doing their best to destabilize.”
Marx asked rhetorically, “How many of them have actually been to China, or, you know, spent any time there?”
When asked about human rights abuses, he was candid: “Hong Kong is part of China ……. I think that’s always been difficult for people to understand and has triggered a certain emotional response, maybe even a certain regret that Hong Kong was handed back.”
He took a similar tone on the Uighur issue. He said he “can’t say” whether the hawkish Chinese lawmakers were right or wrong in their condemnation of what is happening.
Britain may already be suffering from cooler relations with China, including a decision to phase out the use of huawei kit in the U.K.’s 5G infrastructure by 2027.
“There’s a trade-off there, and maybe actually having more Internet access and faster Internet as soon as possible will actually improve literacy. The state of Education,” he said, with a broad smile, “has improved!”
Next year will bring many key moments in the UK-China relationship. Before the end of this parliamentary term, MPs will again vote on whether to block trade deals with countries deemed guilty of genocide – a measure aimed squarely at China. Then, in November, the 2021 UN climate change conference will be held in Glasgow, and any goal will require China’s cooperation to be meaningful.
Stanley and Max Johnson’s point, then, is clear: despite the tensions between Beijing and London, cooperation is a must in the years ahead. This is a significant departure from the focus of the Conservative hawks.
As Johnson, in Downing Street Prime Minister’s Office, said last year, “I am a pro-China person and I believe we must continue to work with this great, rising power – on climate change or trade or whatever it happens to be.”
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