Simon McDonald, a former permanent under-secretary at the British Foreign Office, recently appeared before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the House of Lords to describe an internal dispute over the British government’s policy toward China. He described an ongoing battle between the Cabinet Office’s Security Division and the Foreign Office for control of British policy toward China.
The British government on March 16 released the largest post-Cold War review of foreign and defense policy. The 114-page report defines Russia as a “hostile state” and identifies China as a “systemic competitor. While the document acknowledges the risks posed to Britain by a more assertive China on the international stage and describes China as “the greatest national threat to Britain’s economic security,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain would continue to pursue “positive trade and investment relations” with Beijing. trade and investment relationship” with Beijing. The Johnson government’s report has been criticized by senior Conservative lawmakers for its naiveté and weak policies on Communist China.
On the hot-button issue, McDonnell said the U.K.’s 2010 policy toward China, which viewed the Communist Party “entirely as an economic power and an economic development possibility” without any political considerations, began to be reshaped in 2016 when Theresa May became prime minister and emphasized the security threat. adjusted. Macdonald, who was permanent under-secretary of state at the British Foreign Office from September 2015 to September 2020, said, “The diplomatic system is still trying to work out how to organize an overall policy toward China. There are two basic models, and we have not yet decided which of them to choose.” He said, “One is to have a division in the security division of the Cabinet Office that brings all (departments) in, and the other is to have the department that has most of the expertise (Foreign Affairs) as the lead and have a team that can draw on expertise from other parts of the government. That remains the issue to be addressed.”
McDonald said that on the issue of seeking access to British policy-making authority on China, Foreign Office officials cited the example of how quickly they reorganized their policy toward Russia after the Skripal affair in 2018. The Guardian report argues that while turf wars within the British government have occurred from Time to time, this uncertainty has rarely overshadowed what is perhaps the biggest single foreign policy issue facing the U.K. Its also a reflection of the controversy between factions that view policy toward China from a diplomatic or security perspective. A series of experts, including Professor Kerry Brown, who served as first secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing, told the committee last month that the U.K. does not have a policy framework for China that balances security risks and economic opportunities.
McDonald noted that Britain had been hoping to make a big leap forward in relations with China by providing financial services, but “frankly, that hasn’t happened and it’s not going to happen. From his experience of dealing with Chinese officials, Macdonald concluded that “China does not want to organize its service sector in the British or Western way, but wants to be as self-generating as possible within themselves. For his part, former British Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill told the committee that “there are many countries in the world with appalling human rights records with which we have had economic relations for decades, and that has been the traditional British position.”
Sedwill argued that the West’s regrettable lack of cohesion on China Policy issues has allowed the Chinese side to “divide and conquer.” For example, he said, when Australia asked Beijing to allow an independent investigation into the traceability of the new pneumonia, it received only rhetorical support (from the West). Stowell said, “The absolute key (to the issue) is for the whole West to have a sense of common purpose.” If we try to do it separately, he said, “China’s absolute power and relentless use of its power will seek to divide and conquer and pit different countries against each other.”
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