Relationship with Russia and China

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Richard Graham

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

As chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the all-party China group, it is a great pleasure to speak last—I think—from the Back Benches in this debate, which has been brilliantly timed by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely).

It is an extraordinary thing. No one could criticise the energy of our defence and diplomatic engagement with Ukraine and Russia in the past few weeks and even months. It is also true, however, that a united western approach, whether on defence, cyber, energy or even legislation, has been lacking, and that is what, paradoxically, President Putin may be helping to bring about. Our own analysis has been in the integrated review for a year and a half: “Global Britain in a Competitive Age” clearly outlines Russia as the most acute direct threat, and China as a systemic competitor. Nor do we lack policy goals in either direction. We aspire to be the leading European ally in NATO, and have the broadest, most integrated presence of any European partner in the Indo-Pacific, in support of mutually beneficial trade, shared security and values.

However, the best plans have to adapt to facts on the ground, so let us identify the challenge before us which, as the head of the Security Service put it the other day, is

“a contest of different worlds…between the liberal democrat model west and the more authoritarian model nations.”

In my view, that is only partly true, because we do—and should—work closely with nations and societies, whether in the middle east, Africa or Asia, that could not be described as following a liberal democrat model, but that may not wish for a change of global leadership.

In that new environment, we must think carefully about what our approach should be, and I believe the first thing is to define British interests, which include a global Britain, not a Britain decoupled from the world—as the head of the Security Service made clear, there is no need to cut ourselves off from the world. It involves understanding autocrats through engagement. In the context of China, that engagement very much includes forums such as the UK-China Leadership Forum, which brings British and Chinese leaders together to talk about issues of strong bilateral and indeed global interest. It includes the work of a Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office non-departmental body, the Great Britain-China Centre, and the all-party China group. That group has now run its first masterclass for Members of Parliament, so that we all have a better grasp of some of the issues, whether that is mainland China, the bilateral relationship, Taiwan, Hong Kong—whatever. Such courses play an important part in expanding our knowledge of the autocracies of the world. Engagement has suffered hugely from this pandemic. It has been terrible for engagement, as it is effectively impossible to travel to China or Hong Kong if one has to quarantine for three weeks, and that lack of physical contact is always dangerous in a more uncertain world.

Within that, our approach needs to consider a number of different things. First, careful scrutiny, not blanket prejudice, is incredibly important. Colleagues across the House have talked about not having any danger of prejudice against the peoples of Russia or China, as that would be contrary to everything that this House and democracies stand for. More trade and investment is a good thing; it brings countries closer together and ties us all in, while protecting our national security. Other colleagues have raised ways in which we can and should do that, and we have been too slow to do so.

We also need to define our positive interests as much as the things we dislike. There is sometimes a danger in this House that while we are good at criticising what we do not like, we do not make enough of what is positive—what is good about our own country, what we need to do more of, and how we can engage with the world more effectively.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Through his chairmanship of the all-party China group, my hon. Friend and neighbour has probably done more than anybody in this House to engage with China. One thing he has always done when engaging with China is to be absolutely frank with the Chinese where they have got it wrong, as well as where they have it right. Is that how we should go forward?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is very kind. I have always felt it incredibly important that we stand up for our values, and for the past 11 years, as chair of the all-party China group, I have never accepted mainland Chinese sponsorship of the group. That is precisely because I knew that somewhere along the line, that would be perceived as the group being obliged to a nation overseas, with whose values we do not always align. I have always felt it incredibly important to speak truth to power, whether that is our own Ministers, who may not always relish that, or foreign countries. It is all about the tone and how we engage, understanding where foreign countries, in particular autocracies, are coming from. There is no need for us to compromise on our values, but there is every need to find a way of co-existing peacefully with countries that will be here for a very long time to come. Our greatest challenge will be how we balance those two things.

I will conclude by musing on the fact that the story of the 20th century is fundamentally a story of how nationalist autocracies underestimated the resolve of the democratic west to come together in defence of what we believe in. It would be the cruellest irony and the greatest shame if the same were now to happen in our own century. For all those reasons, it is even more important that we double, triple, quadruple our engagement with those of different values in different systems, so that we understand where they are coming from and are better prepared to unite in a strategic approach together, if need be, to counter threats to our own future.