UK-China Relations

Debate between Lincoln Jopp and Calum Miller

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for securing this important debate. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I concur with the view expressed in the integrated review refresh 2023 that China represents a strategic challenge to the UK,

“across almost every aspect of national life and government policy.”

This debate has been a chance to consider how the Government are focusing on meeting that challenge. Suffice to say, from my and my party’s perspective, at this stage it is disappointing. I accept that it is not easy, as the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) just set out; the Conservative party lurched from sharing pints with the President of China to in 2021 designating China as,

“the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security”.

Xi is able to think strategically over many years, now that he has such great control of the Chinese apparatus, so the UK needs to do better and be more constant.

First, we need to be more clear-sighted about the threat that China poses. Secondly, we need to make use of the full apparatus available to us. Thirdly, we must set out some red lines, and show the Chinese Government that breaching them will have consequences. The hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe is right to highlight the scale that China has when it comes to the global economy, but the hon. Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) is also right to point out, from his position of experience, the importance that that has for UK industry. However, we must balance those economic interests with the threat, and it is my view that, at the moment, the Government’s position is too accommodating and not sufficiently robust.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

We may disagree about what we heard earlier on today in the spring statement about whether the economy is growing, but we are certain that this Government will grasp ever more desperately at the will-o’-the-wisp of growth in the months and years to come. Does he agree that—unlike the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who said he went to China with his eyes wide open—we might as a country end up turning a Nelsonian eye to human rights abuse, to the fact we are exporting our net zero to a highly carbonised economy and to the cyber-attacks we experience daily from China in order to chase after growth that is not coming?

[Calum Miller]

I agree with the hon. Member on two fronts. First, he and I agree more on our disappointment with today’s growth figure than he gives me credit for. Secondly, the Government have set out that they wish at times to challenge, at times to co-operate and at other times to compete with China, but it is my contention that, as he set out, they are too intent on co-operation and not sufficiently intent on challenge.

I will briefly set out three areas of threat, starting with security and echoing the comments made by others. We face direct threats in the form of cyber-attacks, the threat of China as an ally to our enemies and see China threatening some of our own allies, including Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Secondly, we face threats in terms of economic vulnerability. Many other Members have spoken about our dependency. In addition, the Government’s regrettable decision to cut the UK’s overseas aid budget creates an opening space for China in the global south, through its belt and road initiative, to increase the debt dependency of countries on itself, and therefore to increase its influence in the world. On the economic side, there are credible reports of China’s attempts to steal intellectual property from the United Kingdom’s university and tech sectors, and I am concerned that the Government are not doing enough to stop that.