United Kingdom and China

Lord Howe of Aberavon Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howe of Aberavon (Con)]

My Lords, although my name does not appear on the speakers list, I hope that I may be allowed to intervene briefly as almost the last speaker in this debate.

I do so because China has been an institution in my life for a very long time. I go back to 1949 when, together with my academic friend, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I sold Conservatism in the Labour valleys of south Wales. The two of us, along with another, were the “brains trust” in the Constitutional Club of Ebbw Vale. The first question asked of us when we put our act over arose from the fact that, on that very evening, a socialist called Ernest Bevin, then Foreign Secretary, had recognised the People’s Republic of China. We were asked whether we thought that this was at all a proper thing for the British Government to do. Mercifully, we had both been subject to academic instruction at Cambridge from Professor Eli Lauterpacht, the international lawyer, and we were very quickly able to define what was necessary for China to be regarded as respectable, which was what we told the socialist miners at the Constitutional Club. That has left China planted firmly in my interests. Of course, it became overwhelmingly so when I found myself as Foreign Secretary, but it was so before that.

The other thing that I would like to emphasise, beyond the huge importance of China, is the outstanding importance of this debate. It is the kind of debate, with much expertise and diversity of judgment, which you would not be able to find in any institution of this kind, save the House of Lords. I am not drawing a lesson from that except to hope that the many arguments put forward by noble Lords here today will be regarded and worked on.

One of the most striking things was to understand the huge leaps that the Chinese leadership had to make as a socialist-dominated and communist-dominated organisation—as it did do eventually under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership. China had been through a period at the beginning of the 20th century when it did have democratically elected and departmental Governments, but that broke down—it did not work.

Deng Xiaoping was able to see not so much the need for political change as the importance of economic change. I talked to him, when I went out there to try to save the future of Hong Kong, and he said by way of encouragement that the American and Japanese Governments had given him assurances that their companies would go on investing in Hong Kong even when it was taken over.

He appeared to understand, when I gave him an alternative view, that Hong Kong was a magnet, and that Americans and Japanese would invest there only because of that magnetism. And that magnetism would not be durable if they found their investments being dealt with unkindly. They needed to have the guarantee of a market foundation in Hong Kong, for the future. Of course, that was not the only lesson that Deng Xiaoping learnt on the matter. But, certainly, the Chinese approach did thereafter recognise the importance of the magnetism of Hong Kong.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, mentioned Chinese artistic objects, Ming culture and china of the porcelain kind, in the context of Hong Kong. It reminded me of another discussion that took place during the Los Angeles Olympics, and the baton races there. I stressed to Deng Xiaoping that he should think of us not as though racing against each other but as fellow members of a relay team: we are handing over Hong Kong and must make quite sure that the baton does not get dropped. We had to behave as if we were running together in the Los Angeles Olympics.

I do not take credit for having persuaded him in that one address. It was the picture that we were trying to get across, and it was that picture which has laid the foundation for market economics, rather than communist economics, that started in Hong Kong, but began spreading through China as well. The extent to which that is now understood and has been clarified by today’s debate is important. It has been an accurate, encouraging and optimistic debate, and I think the right one to make sure that our Government understand the importance of a liberal trading relationship with China. We recognise the importance of our political relationship. Those arguments have been underwritten in every way in today’s debate, including in the episcopal contributions and excellent speeches by two maiden speakers.

The importance of our maintaining the right attitude towards China, giving encouragement and recognising its importance, will be increasingly acknowledged and, I hope, will follow from this debate to which I have contributed—not, I am afraid, very eloquently but in simple terms. The noble Lord, Lord Wilson, has shown the right approach towards the Hong Kong Chinese, the extent to which democracy was able to found itself there and how the economic bridge with China was strengthened and better understood. I hope that the Government will take note of this debate in deciding how to proceed in our relationship with China.