China: EU Committee Report

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood]

My Lords, for me, one of the best brief general descriptions of western Europe’s relationship with China appears in the opening paragraph of The Chan’s Great Continent, written by the great Chinese observer, Jonathan Spence. He writes:

“One aspect of a country’s greatness is surely its capacity to attract and retain the attention of others. This capacity has been evident from the very beginnings of the West’s encounter with China; the passing centuries have never managed to obliterate it altogether, even though vagaries of fashion and shifting political stances have at times dulled the sheen. The sharpness of the feelings aroused by China in the West, the reiterated attempts to describe and analysze the country and its people, the apparently unending receptivity of Westerners to news from China, all testify to the levels of fascination the country has generated”.

When I first became involved in China, just over a decade ago, when to my unexpected delight I became vice-president of the European Parliament’s China delegation, I was dazzled. At that time, I spoke to an older and wise friend, a considerable China scholar who in a diplomatic capacity—not, I would mention, in a UK diplomatic capacity—spent a number of years in the country during and after the Cultural Revolution. Her reply was, “Don’t be distracted by the exoticism: focus on the rational”. The problem we face is that we may not fully understand what the Chinese want, since their historic and cultural framework is not the same as ours.

A good example of that has already been alluded to in this debate—the Chinese attitude to human rights. As we all know, in the Chinese hierarchy of values, human rights are different and less important than they are to us. I expect that not only everyone in the Chamber but many Chinese people themselves believe that the Western hierarchy of values is right but, as has already been mentioned, to influence human rights in China, we need to appreciate that our values and theirs may be different. The arguments that we think are self-evident are not necessarily those which will persuade those whom we wish to change. We must deploy the arguments that are potent to others if we wish to bring about change. The report is absolutely right about that.

Equally, the concept of the rule of law is subtly different. It is not law quite as we understand it because ultimately, in China, the law is an expression of policy and the Executive’s aspirations—in much the same way as the National People’s Congress is not quite the same as Parliament here. In my judgment—I strongly echo the sentiments expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe—we in this country and western Europe have not placed as much emphasis on legal education and the development of legal studies in China as we might have. We have missed a trick in that regard. Had we done as much in respect of legal education as we have in trying to introduce business education to China, we would have achieved more than we have.

China has a very clear historically based perception of itself. Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, it is understandable within the framework of the way in which constitutional arrangements have evolved in the East. They may be expressed in terms of international law, which is, after all, a western European concept but, underneath that, there are slightly different eastern ideas. For example, I do not think that the Chinese treatment of Tibet and the Tibetans is in any way proper or justified, and I am no apologist for it, but I can see how, from a Chinese perspective, the Chinese have reached their justification for what they have done. We are not doing the Tibetans any favour by not being clear about that. Indeed, the Dalai Lama’s attitude towards the independence of Tibet suggests that he shares that view.

Against the background of a “one China” policy, combined with a “one country, several systems” approach, we can see how the approach is being allowed to evolve to the People’s Republic’s advantage. It has the potential to provide considerable benefits, and may well do so in future, especially in respect of Taiwan, Tibet and even bits of what are now integrally part of what is more generally considered to be single China—say, Shanghai or Shenzhen. That constitutional approach may seem somewhat perverse to those of the European Union—especially, I suspect, to some in this country—but there is nevertheless a clear logic to what is going on which we ignore at our peril.

We need to be equally clear about the destructive character of the previous century in China which has, from its point of view, been more or less one continuous civil war. In particular, the Cultural Revolution will have had a considerable impact on the Chinese leadership. Understanding their economic policies must be based on an appreciation that they are trying to pursue the antithesis of the destructive chaos that swept that land over most of the past century. In particular, they are looking for stability and good fortune. I suppose that we would describe good fortune as getting richer. After all, in the 19th and 20th centuries, China in its historic context was politically at a very low ebb and was a demoralised great power. The wealth in the world was being created in the West and the Chinese, understandably, wanted to engage with that and participate.

Under the administration of a one-party system speaking the liturgy of Marxism with Chinese characteristics, we have seen a Chinese attempt in the World Trade Organisation, for example, and in how it has been behaving in the international monetary markets, to try to return to its rightful position as a great power. That will not necessarily be to our advantage in the immediate or the longer term, but from a Chinese perspective, I can see precisely what they are trying to do. It is also interesting to see our reaction in the West to what has been going on in this context. It has put into stark perspective the issues that are thrown up by how Europe should retain its economic competitiveness. This has been a subject of considerable debate, not least in this Chamber, and it will, no doubt, continue to be one.

How is China looking at the wider world? Is it striving for a tripolar world of the US, China and the EU, a bipolar world or what? Indeed, it is not clear to me what the European Union wants, and it is certainly not obvious what the evidence of the EU’s external policy may be saying to the Chinese. As was pointed out in the report, Chinese puzzlement seems to be entirely justified. It is arguable that it is we who are in a muddle about this.

One of the most important things emerging from this report is that it highlights a couple of issues that arise from looking at the EU/China relationship. They are some of the biggest issues facing western Europe and the European Union. How do we deal with questions of competitiveness and in what way does the European Union’s diplomatic mission and approach go forward? There is a difference between many in this country and the European Union of which we are part. The same disagreement is to be found among some other members of the European Union. Since those disagreements are not necessarily about the same things, it seems to me that we have to focus very hard to work out what we collectively want in these circumstances.