China: EU Committee Report

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the very thoughtful and constructive speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock. The Foreign Secretary has made it clear that China is an area where there should be continuity of foreign policy. It is very much an area in which there is consensus among all the main parties on what British and European policy should be.

The Government welcome this extremely helpful report which contributes to the British and European debate. Like other reports from the Lords EU committee, it will no doubt be read in Brussels and other capitals. I apologise for the delay in the ministerial reply. There have been one or two hiccups in the middle, such as the general election. Some of the committee members, at least, will be aware that the Minister responsible wrote to the chairman on 3 June:

“I hope that a time-frame of two months from the State Opening of Parliament on 25 May would be acceptable”.

So a full and detailed ministerial reply will be on its way well within that timeframe. I should perhaps also apologise and say that I hope my voice does not give out before the end of my speech. I have a rather bad cold.

The report and the speeches in this debate have been balanced between EU/China issues and UK/China issues. I loved the comment in paragraph 35 that,

“it was not always clear for China where the locus of governance was in dealing with Europe”,

referring to Chinese confusion over where the balance of authority lies between national capitals and Brussels on trade, intellectual property, technological co-operation and everything else. Of course, Members of this House are entirely clear where the balance lies between Brussels and Britain. This is part of the constructive ambiguity with which we all deal within the European Union, and the Chinese are learning to navigate their way around it.

On the other hand, there is a useful emphasis in the report that China, in its turn, is not a monolith. We need to pay more attention to the Chinese provinces, and we need to make sure that there is representation for the United Kingdom and, indeed, for the European Union as a whole in the major Chinese provinces. When being briefed, I was told that Guangdong province now has an economy larger than that of Saudi Arabia, for example, with 30 other provinces to add. So far as China is concerned, the future of the EU External Action Service is very much a matter of coming to grips with a complex entity.

China is a priority for the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. We fully support her objectives and her efforts there. She visited China at the end of April, and one notes that this is a dual relationship. President Sarkozy made a major visit. The Chancellor was in Beijing on 3 and 4 June for economic discussions and then, I remind the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, went to the Shanghai Expo to visit our excellent exhibition there.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked about collocation and secondment. I remind him that the British Government have collocated a number of their missions with others—in particular, German ones—and I think in at least one case with a European Commission office. Therefore, there is no objection in general and, indeed, there is a huge advantage in doing so, often on economic grounds. The European Union External Action Service is in the process of development. We are busily training and seconding officials to it, but we will have to write to the noble Lord about the development of the structure of the EU External Action Service in China.

It may be appropriate to say a little about the new coalition Government’s approach to co-operation on foreign policy within the EU. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred to William Hague’s maiden speech at the Conservative Party conference. The noble and learned Lord reminded me the other day that on the famous photograph so often reproduced of the 15 year-old William Hague, there are only three other recognisable faces, one of which is his. So a number of people go back that far with William Hague.

In the Queen’s Speech debate in the Commons, the Foreign Secretary said:

“The Government will be an active and activist player in the European Union … while working to make the European Union as a whole a success … It is also in our interests and in the EU’s general interest for the nations of the EU to make greater use of their collective weight in the world”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/5/10; cols. 187-88.]

This report is, after all, about making greater use of the EU’s collective weight in its relations with China. In a couple of days’ time, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary will be speaking together in Berlin about Britain’s European policy.

The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, asked whether an enhanced partnership with India, mentioned in the coalition agreement, would mean that China would be downgraded. We do not see it as one situation versus the other; we very much want to continue to build on the previous Government’s approach to China and to extend their strategic dialogue as far as we can. We already have a fairly developed structure of annual summits, the economic and financial dialogue and, now, the strategic dialogue. Therefore, we are currently talking to the Chinese at many different levels.

There has been much reference in this debate to history. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, went the furthest back—150 years—reminding us that the western treatment of China, with years of humiliation, western arrogance and complacency, is still very much in their minds. That explains part of the intense sensitivity with regard to sovereignty, outside criticism of domestic affairs, including on human rights, their treatment of minorities and the management of Tibet and Xinjiang, and so on. Perhaps we also have to be a little more humble in remembering that when we were behaving in Beijing in the way that the noble Lord suggested, our treatment of our national minorities in Ireland was not entirely above criticism. Therefore, we are moving along a certain path.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talked about the opening of contact with the EC in 1975. We are, after all, still struggling with a trade agreement of 1985 and are making efforts to move that forward into a more constructive partnership agreement. However, I think we all recognise that the transformation of China since then—economically above all but also to some extent socially and in some ways even in terms of human rights and the rule of law—has been remarkable. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about the changes in the freedom to worship. The noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, quoted the claim—which perhaps is quite correct—that the Chinese have better human rights now than they have had over the past 5,000 years. There may be some way further to go but there are signs of movement in the right direction.

The noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Crickhowell, both said that it is a great mistake to preach at the Chinese. It is far better to appeal, as far as we can, to their enlightened self-interest. That is clearly true in relation to the rule of law. On my first visit to Beijing in 1981, I met Professor Gerry Cohen from Harvard, who was giving introductory lectures on international law to Chinese trade officials. They did not want to learn about that out of a sense that it was important intrinsically; they wanted to negotiate over trade—enlightened self-interest. Similarly, the Great Britain-China Centre, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred, has made very important contributions to work on rule-of-law issues in China. We have to persuade the Chinese that a stronger rule of law, a stronger recognition of the importance of whistleblowers in providing for better industrial relations and better sustainable development is in their own interests and not just a question of value. That has to be the way forward. The same is true of their attitude to intellectual property, which is still a sensitive issue, to the market economy and to energy use.

We will, if we may, write to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on the specific human rights issues that he mentioned. We raise specific cases of concern within our human rights dialogue with China. The last round of the EU human rights dialogue with China took place last November and the next round is due to take place in Madrid in June. In that dialogue, we will again focus on freedom of expression, freedom of the press, human rights defenders, the situation in Tibet and Xinjiang, and the death penalty, torture and so on. Therefore, we continue to raise these issues and slow progress is made.

Similarly, on climate change, we have some leverage because the Chinese themselves are increasingly worried about the environmental damage they are doing to their economy. Therefore, we welcomed the focus on climate change during the recent visit to Beijing by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. We are also engaged with the Chinese in work on carbon capture technology and on other forms of reducing the energy intensity of their economy.

We have to explain to them that, because of its special status, it is in their interests that Hong Kong continues to remain an economic and financial driver for the entire Chinese economy. In the introduction to the 2009 EU annual report on Hong Kong, just published, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, welcomed the EU’s strong support for early and substantial progress towards the goal of universal suffrage in accordance with their Basic Law. So we are doing our best to persuade them that their enlightened self-interest goes along with the values that we ourselves wish to promote. This is more difficult in some areas than others.

Several noble Lords mentioned the arms embargo issue. It is a sensitive issue partly because it is one for both sides. Indeed, in some ways it is more symbolic than real. It was imposed because of the abuses of human rights, above all in the Tiananmen massacre. It was not originally linked to the Taiwan issue, although we are conscious of the Taiwan dimension and there is broad consensus in Europe that now is not the right time to lift the arms embargo. We need to see clear progress on those matters before the issue is raised again.

Cyber crime strategy and the whole question of what is happening is one of the most sensitive issues with which we are dealing with the Chinese and with companies such as Google operating in China. We agree that we should continue to work closely in this area with all our partners in the EU, NATO and other relevant organisations. A number of noble Lords raised the much broader question, which is in the report, of how to encourage China to become what some call a more responsible power or to shoulder a larger share in the responsibility for maintaining global order and prosperity. Again, the report notes that China is gradually becoming more engaged in all sorts of ways. It is the largest contributor to peacekeeping within the P5, although most Chinese peacekeepers I understand are still in the logistical, medical and support dimension. They do not yet have combat troops in UN peacekeeping operations, unlike India which is the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations at present. When I looked at how many British ships were taking part in the anti-piracy operations off Somalia, I was struck by the fact that there was one British ship and three Chinese. So the Chinese are beginning to take a larger role.

In Africa, too, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said, the Chinese now find themselves moving up a learning curve on how they need to co-operate with African states to preserve their longer-term interests. Sudan is an interesting case in point, where the possibility that there might be a secession in Sudan in the next year—possibly accompanied by further conflict—must directly affect Chinese interests. We therefore have an interested basis on which to discuss with the Chinese how we help to prevent future conflict. We see ourselves as working with the Chinese on peacekeeping and peacebuilding and there is more to be done to encourage the Chinese to take full part in multilateral approaches to conflict prevention, post-conflict reconstruction, and so on. We will be ending the British bilateral aid programme to China next March and we see ourselves moving towards a strategic partnership with China in international development, which will be working with China on issues such as African development. The International Development Secretary has asked that a global partnership fund be established within DfID to provide resources to work with countries such as China on the exchange of experience and mutual learning in support of other developing countries. I hope that noble Lords think that that is a useful step forward.

We have to recognise that as we adjust to China taking a larger role in international institutions, that may in time raise some painful issues for Britain and other European countries. We are all—the Italians, French and Dutch, as well as the British and the French—conscious that we wish to retain our positions in the IMF and elsewhere. There is much to be done in terms of how we adjust.

On North Korea and Taiwan we are conscious that China is the only country that can significantly influence North Korea. China pursues a policy of economic engagement to encourage stability in North Korea and avoid the threat of a collapse, which would hit China more strongly than anywhere else except for South Korea. We have to ensure that Chinese policies do not undermine UN Security Council resolutions designed to prevent proliferation. On Taiwan, again we do all that we can to encourage China to recognise that a peaceful relationship and further development of the relationship of two countries within one state should be developed. So far, again it is clear that that is also in China’s interest as well as in ours.

Several noble Lords mentioned the question of the considerable attention to China from within the United Kingdom and the extension of British and other European students studying in China. More young people are being encouraged to study Mandarin elsewhere. Again, these are encouraging signs. The last time I was in Beijing I was lecturing on a joint London School of Economic’s graduate degree course in China made up of half British and European students and half Chinese. The University of Nottingham is doing much more than that, so there are a number of initiatives under way, not all of which are government-led, helping to encourage that. I know that a number of independent schools, in particular, are encouraging more people to study Mandarin.

In conclusion, the Government are happy to accept many aspects of this report’s analysis. We see that a more coherent and effective EU-China relationship should be a priority for the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and for the European External Action Service, supported by a more consistent approach to China from the different member states. Constructive engagement with China can deliver huge opportunities for the people of Europe across our international, bilateral and trade priorities. I thank the EU Committee for this excellent report and look forward to the next one on this subject.