The UK needs a clear choice on China relations
- By John Ross
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 12, 2014
Among the reasons Germany came through the international financial crisis much more successfully than the other major European economies is undoubtedly because of strengthening economic relations with China. Germany and China worked out an international division of labour which plays to the strength of both economies -- an approach which should be copied by the U.K.
Germany's strength is in manufacturing. It is highly specialized in the production of very high quality machine tools and other investment equipment. China needs to important large quantities of these to upgrade its industrial structure. Simultaneously, China is by far the world's largest and most cost-efficient producer of intermediate technology goods -- German imports of which helps keep its own inflation at a low level. Chinese companies, such as construction equipment manufacturer Sany, have been investing in Germany to gain access to its expertise. Germany's Chancellor Merkel has consciously kept the momentum of relations with China moving forward by making seven official trips to China.
As Europe's economy is now undoubtedly going to suffer a setback, due to the negative side effects of the crisis in Ukraine, with its damaging sanctions and counter sanctions, creating the best possible relations with China is even more important for all European economies including the U.K.
British Prime Minister Cameron and Finance Minister Osborne's trips to China earlier this year, together with Li Keqiang's visit to the U.K., therefore looked like they would open a new relatively smooth and fruitful period in Sino-British relations. But unfortunately, instead of building on this, Britain decided to shoot itself in the foot again by creating the same type of problems as with the Dalai Lama -- this time over Hong Kong.
This immediate issue was the decision of the U.K. Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee to "investigate" the new 2017 system of election of Hong Kong's chief executive. Not merely does the U.K. no longer have legal rights in Hong Kong, after Britain's former colony returned to China in 1997, but the U.K. committee's moral position on this looks ridiculous. Britain ruled Hong Kong for 150 years. It never introduced elections for Hong Kong's chief executive, the governor, in any form whatsoever. If Britain thought there were some vital issue involved in the method of deciding Hong Kong's head of government, Britain could have introduced that system while it was ruling Hong Kong -- it did not.
The British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee decision therefore had no practical effect on China but to damage Britain's interests. As Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the U.K., pointed out in a letter to the chairman of the committee: "The affairs of the Hong Kong SAR are purely China's internal affairs. Hence China is firmly opposed to any interference in Hong Kong affairs by any foreign country and by any means."
But although the British Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee has no practical power, its initiative will complicate relations with China. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress of China wrote to its UK counterpart: "We hope our friends in the Foreign Affairs Committee will act with caution on the issue of Hong Kong, bear in mind the larger picture of China-U.K. relations and Hong Kong's prosperity and stability, and stop interfering in Hong Kong's affairs and cancel the inquiry on U.K.-Hong Kong relations."
The reality is that the actions of the U.K. Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee damage the interests of the people of Britain -- who have most certainly not been consulted over the matter. Given the real choice of what is more important, to secure jobs and incomes in Britain through good relations with China, or to make completely ineffectual statements on a matter over which the U.K. has no jurisdiction," a crushing majority of the British public would undoubtedly choose the former.
It is a great pity that some British political authorities began to partially deviate from the fruitful track that was re-established earlier this year. At that time China-U.K. relations looked like they were getting onto a mutually beneficial track. Regrettably, by attempting to interfere in the internal affairs of China again, some people in Britain damaged this mutually advantageous path.
This is not to the advantage of either side. But truthfully, given the relative contemporary economic strength of the two sides, the U.K. would suffer from this path much more than China. It is therefore strongly to be hoped that the U.K. political authorities will stop creating obstacles to better relations, and China and Britain will pursue the path of building on their different but complimentary economic strengths which was established earlier this year.
The writer is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/johnross.htm
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