 I'm the director of the Sours China Institute. I'm delighted that we have a fantastic speaker to talk on a subject that is very important to the United Kingdom. And the subject is the UK's China policy fit for purpose. And the speaker is Mr. Charles Parton. Charlie is a senior associate fellow at URUZI, the Royal United Services Institute in London. He's also an associate fellow of the Council on Geo-Strategy. And he also serves as a specialist advisor on China to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee for his 2018-19 China inquiries. Mr. Parton has a long distinguished career in the diplomatic service of the United Kingdom and the EU separately. When he was working for the EU and the EU, he focused mostly on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, even though he also, as you would expect, covered other regions. He has published extensively in academic journals and many UK newspapers and speaks frequently on the main media, whether we're talking about the BBC, LBC, France 24, or Al Jazeera and many others. And with his experience with UK's China policy and being somebody who always think for himself and speak his mind, I think he is genuinely a particularly well-placed speakers to address us on this very important subject. And before I hand it over to Mr. Parton, let me just remind you that this webinar will be recorded or indeed is being recorded now. At the end of the presentation, if you would like to raise a question or make a comment, please use the Q&A box at the bottom right-hand corner. You are welcomed to stay anonymous, but it would be very helpful to me as moderator if you would put in the Q&A box information about yourself. That's just to help me to pick the questions to put to the speaker. But if you also say there, you would like to stay anonymous, your wish will be respected and no reference will be made about your institution or you. Now with that, let me hand over to Charlie. Steve, thank you very much. And I'm honored to be given this opportunity to speak at a SOAS seminar. Actually, one thing you missed out of your introduction of me is that I learnt my Chinese at SOAS. That's where the Foreign Office sent me for my first year's language training. So I'm always grateful to the institution. When we first discussed this talk and the title, I thought to myself, well, this is going to be a very short talk because it's not clear to me or hasn't been for some time as to whether the UK actually has a policy on China and therefore whether it's fit for purpose would take hardly anything to talk about. That's a little unfair, actually. And I think that, of course, we did have a China policy. That was the golden arrow, which of George Osborne, which I spoke with three hours. But I think since then, it's clear that things have moved on very much and the Foreign Affairs Committee you may remember back in April 2019 specifically called on the need for a China strategy or China policy. Sometimes the reaction to that in government as one official said to me is, well, what's the point in having a strategy if it changes the moment that it's set? And of course, my answer to that is, that's the whole point. You have to keep changing as events keep changing. And you have to keep updating it. Foreign Office itself used to have a China strategy. It's 2009. Do take a look at it. It's as a list of aspirations of what we would like. I think it remains fine, but it's not really a guide as to the sort of actions that we need to take, particularly 12 years later. And recently, some of you will have read the integrated review, but that doesn't mean it certainly is not giving us a China strategy. If anything, the phrase that sort of leaps out or the idea that leaps out is of a constructive ambiguity. And I don't think that's really works. There's a contradiction there between being ambiguous. And if you say that you wish to be a global leader, well, how can you lead if no one exactly knows the direction in which you're leading? So I think we do need a strategy. I think the government is working hard on it. The question I would, or I'm trying to answer in here, is in the absence of a full oversight, which of course I have no oversight at all of what goes on in the government anymore. To what degree might it be going in the right direction and is it going in the right direction with sufficient speed? I'd like to make some preliminary points if I may. The first, and I say this in every talk that I give on China is that whenever I use the word China, I'm really meaning the Chinese Communist Party. And I think the two are very different. But in terms of foreign policy, and that's what we're talking about here, don't ever forget that as Xi Jinping has said, the party controls everything. But the foreign affairs, the highest body involved in foreign affairs, the Foreign Affairs Commission, and that is a party body. It's not a government body. Other points I would make that foreign policy is always domestic policy carried out abroad. I think that's possibly true of every country. But as often with Chinese Communist Party, I'd say it's even more so the case. And in that means that we need to look always in any foreign policy that the CCP, is pushing what lies behind it in terms of its reflections in the domestic scene. And another thought that I don't fully agree with the recent paper by Chatham House, which tells us that Chinese foreign policy is very much more diversified than we think. To some extent, I think that's true. But because the party controls everything, because whatever aspect you are of Chinese foreign policy or involved in it, whether you're business, academia, cultural or political aspects of it, you must confirm, conform to Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy, which is another very distinct aspect of Xi Jinping thought, which Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister, has put a lot of effort into. In that sense, foreign Chinese foreign policy is much more unified. Of course, in practice, the CCP is not always able, as it isn't domestically, to ensure implementation of all its wishes. But that nevertheless is the purpose. I'd like that now to sort of, before I deal specifically with UK policy and its fitness for purpose, just to talk a little bit about the nature of Chinese foreign policy, because I think this is an essential background to our thinking. I'll also look a little bit very briefly at what the Chinese Communist Party wants from the UK. And then I'll look at the need, I think for HMG or the government to understand better the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its diplomacy. And finally, end up by looking at some very specific measures, which are going on, I think, in our building in progress. But as I say, may need to go deeper and faster than they are at the moment. So the nature of Chinese Communist Party foreign policy, I mean, outwardly, we hear all the business of win-win and a community of shared future of mankind. And it all sounds very reassuring. If you look at what's said inwardly, the vocabulary changes very sharply and words such as struggle and hostile foreign forces are just about everywhere. And I always think that people should look back at what the party itself or Xi Jinping says, particularly at his first Politburo meeting back in January 2013, when he said that the Chinese socialism must gain the dominant position, Yoshua over Western capitalism. This is a very strong statement. And it's one which reinforces struggle, which comes. And this wasn't just a one-off. I mean, again, just a couple of weeks ago, and the people's daily Xi Jinping is quoted as saying, and the translation is not particularly adequate. The competition between systems is an important aspect of competition, comprehensive national power. And the superiority of its system is a key advantage in a nation's effort to gain overall strategic initiative. This is pretty strong stuff. I mean, strategic initiative has a very strong military content to it amongst other things. So I don't think that we should be in any doubt that the Communist Party in Xi Jinping in particular sees foreign dealings in a very competitive confrontational at times and sometimes hostile light, which brings me onto the D word, which if you're a certain type of American might stand for decoupling, but if you're British might be divergence. And if your Chinese Communist Party might also at times be coupling and certainly divergence. I don't think we should be in any doubt that this is happening, that decoupling is happening. And it's being sped up by the erosion of the distinction in technology between civilian and military applications. But just look at the three sort of areas, whether that's political system, value system or economic system. And I don't think there's any doubt that we are moving further apart. Politically, of course, very much so. But Xi Jinping has, if anything, has definitely walked away from any form of political reform, even intraparty democracy. On the question of values, one only needs to point to what's happened in Hong Kong in Xinjiang, the use of high technology and control and surveillance systems, the incipient totalitarianism that's going on in Chinese society. And I use that word totalitarianism deliberately. Or indeed look at document number nine, again, year 2000, April, it was circulated amongst the party, which lists the Qi Bu Jiang, the seven things you mustn't talk about. And they are the encapsulation of all the values that we hear in the West stand for. And the party specifically rejects. So political system, value system, definitely. And even the economic system, I think, with as the reinforcement of the party's control over the economic levers, the reinforcement of certainly the central SOEs, the levels of subsidies and the various other forms. The relationship between so called private companies and the state. I think it's very difficult to argue that the economic systems aren't diverging. So we need to have that in mind, or our governments also need to have that in mind as they make their policy and strategy. If I were then to very quickly characterize the three main elements of Chinese foreign policy, it would be, and this is crude, I know, it would be to say, well, first of all, the sticks and carrots, economic sticks and carrots. If you want to be positive, of course, you'd say it's more carrots and sticks, but the basic philosophy behind that is if you align with us, the Communist Party, and our interests and participate in, you get to participate in Chinese enormous size market, there are investment opportunities. If you're in the third world, there's development aid, cheap loans or whatever, you get the benefits of the BRI, which instantly the Belt and Road investment is a very fine political slogan. I think it's less of a natural program, although I think we should pay attention to Chinese globalization, that's another matter. But if you go against us, then we will hit you and we will put you in the diplomatic doghouse and we will harm your economic interests. And the list of countries that's gone into the diplomatic doghouse is lengthening, whether we, the UK were in it, as a result of the Dalai Lama, Mongolia of course, offended on the Dalai Lama, Czech Republic did, but also we've had Norway over at the Ocea-born and the Nobel Peace Prize. We've got Australia, Canada and South Korea over the missiles, et cetera. And if you go against what the CCP defines as its core interests, or your policies are perhaps too proximate to those of the United States, as might be said in the case of Australia, then you will go into the diplomatic doghouse. So that's one area of Chinese foreign policy methodology. I think the second I would label as the external propaganda work, massive resources go into this. I think the Economist in 2018 reckoned that in the decade up to then, China had spent 6.6 billion US dollars on overseas propaganda. That figure must be well, well exceeded in the years since if you look at the effort that's going into building up CGTN and Xinhua, for instance, abroad as rivals to things like the BBC or CNN Reuters or the FT or the Economist, massive amounts of effort going into that. We've seen large amounts of inserts into the Western press paying large sums of money. Daily Telegraph taking about 800,000 pounds a year for 12 inserts until they stop that. Efforts to capture Chinese language press, local radio stations, and indeed to provide the sort of news coverage which increasingly Western agencies find difficult to finance. And in providing pictures and words and stories from wherever it is, you are of course angling those towards your view of the world and the way it should be. So external propaganda were massive. That's why the CGTN set up a very big centre here in London. And the third element I think we should concentrate on is the United Front, which Mao described as the third magic weapon along with the Party and the People's Liberation Army. Now, of course, the United Front is primarily a domestic beast. There are over 600,000 people working in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference system, which is part of the United Front. But as China globalises, it goes out into the world, and of course, the United Front goes with it. I think that there's been a tendency here in our countries in Europe, particularly in the press, to portray the United Front work plan, which is the great bogeyman. But I think what is important perhaps to understand, I mean, it does operate in our societies, and it does do things which we would disprove of in terms of interference, and I'm very happy to go into that in some more detail on the question and answer. But rather than, I think we should concentrate on the United Front strategy, because it's that strategy that's so important. And if I were to characterise it in a few sentences, the United Front strategy, whether it's the original version for use inside China against the KMT, or one might say it's a globalised version now, is you identify the main enemy, in foreign relations terms, that's the US. And you seek to move others, potentially hostile entities, to a neutral state, and from a neutral to a friendly state. And those who are already neutral, you try to move to a friendly state. In order to isolate the main enemy. And in the case of the UK, if you were to make a great generalisation, you would say that the point of the United Front strategy is to move us away from the main enemy, to isolate us from the United States. And eventually the CCP might hope to make us more CCP friendly. Moving on then to the next element, what exactly does the Chinese Communist Party want from the UK? Of course, I've just said it wants, in United Front strategy terms, a neutral, if not a friendly UK to its own aims. But in more specific terms, I think one looks at some of the positive things that the UK has to offer to China. We've got, they would like, I'm sure, for us to be a showcase for Chinese really central and important industries, whether that's telecommunications, Huawei, that game I think is over, but in the nuclear industry, or other pillar industries of the Chinese as it develops, their technological strength and business strength. That's important. We're a very open country. And if the UK takes on some of China's, let's say, take on some of China's nuclear technology, that would be an important message for markets elsewhere. The UK has got good innovation and good science and technology research. That's something that CCP would like to get involved with. We're open to investment. Far more so perhaps than many other countries. This CCP would like to learn from the city of London and the services, the service sector to develop its own expertise in finance and other areas. And also, I guess, to support the greater use of the renminbi, the Chinese currency. And we're a supporter of a very open, global, non-protectionist, economic, global government system. China has benefited very much from that. We're a P5 member. And we've got other expertise in areas such as urbanization, health, social security, where the Chinese feel that they may have lessons to learn. And we're still a big economy and a reasonably sized market. So there are plenty of things where the CCP can see interest in working with us. On the negative side, we could say, well, if we were to deny any of those things above, that would be negative and we've done so with Huawei. But increasingly we've got diversion positions on Hong Kong and the implementation of the joint declaration there. On human rights, particularly in Xinjiang, we support the United States in freedom of the seas in the South China Sea and upholding the law, the unclass and laws there. We've got differences over media freedoms and governance. We've been pushing back against certain forms of interference by the CCP in the UK, in academia, politics and the media. And we're getting increasingly strident about Chinese intelligence operations and particularly cyber within our country. So there's elements of negativity there which could be magnified in the coming years. So now to consider sort of UK strategy in given that background. I mean, I think that the UK, and indeed one could say any other European countries, got a difficult balance to strike here because this is an increasingly globalised world. We want to work with China. We want to have good relations with China. But at the same time, we have to prioritise our security of values and our prosperity. And in some ways, many ways, as I said earlier, those are diverging. So in an ideal world, we would agree to disagree with China in many areas but seek to maximise those areas which we have in common. Because this isn't a cold war, although I hesitate to use the word war but certainly it's a divergence in values and systems, as I've said. And we therefore need to be prepared and we have the right to prepare ourselves. And so when I move ahead now to look at what the UK is doing, the question I think when we go back to is our policy fit for purpose is to what degree have we prepared ourselves for the new China and for the divergence that there is in our values and our political systems and our security, etc. So let me just then look at the first of sort of two approaches. One is does the UK, does HMG, the UK government properly understand the Chinese Communist Party and the nature of its diplomacy and has it got a proper perspective on the way that it operates? And I am not sure that it does. I think that in terms of, and I've written a long paper about this and please do go and read it, it's on the Council of Geostrategies website and it's called Empty Threats making policy amidst Chinese pressure. And I think that there's a danger that many people in government and also outside government are getting the wrong perspective on this sticks and carrots element of Chinese foreign policy, which I sketched out. And in that paper, I talk about six areas where you will hear people say, well, if we don't do what the Chinese Communist Party wants, then we're going to be in trouble in and then six areas follow. And the contention I have that actually, if you look at those six areas in some detail, and the bark is very much considerably more, considerably worse than the bite. So please read the paper, but very briefly, let me just look at the six areas. The first is exports. Of course, people always refer to UK Chinese trade and alight the fact that we have a massive deficit and that in one sense, if trade were to cease, China would lose far more than we were. But my contention is that with exports, these tend to carry on regardless of the political storms that are working around politicians heads, providing that companies are producing the right sort of goods, the goods that China needs can't produce for itself, providing the price and the quality is right, then exports go on quite happily no matter that you're in the doghouse. And in that paper, I looked at most of the major countries that have been in the doghouse and there's some quite interesting graphs which show that throughout the years when those countries were in the doghouse, their exports with China grew. In fact, oddly enough, the only years that they tended not to grow was when they were in the Chinese good books, but that actually was due to matters extraneous to the relationship with China related to what was going on in the world economy, for instance. So what happens if you get in the doghouse? Well, of course, there's a lot of pain inflicted because ministers get cut off and there's a lot of political who are. But when it comes to exports, China will hit four types of goods. Those that are symbolic, Norwegian salmon, for instance, those that aren't essential to China, those that China can get elsewhere and those that are politically sensitive, which in particular, it tends to be agricultural goods because agricultural lobbies in various countries are quite strong. But the interesting thing about that is, and again, look at the figures, because China has a food security problem, a real problem, agricultural goods tend to be hit only for about one year. It's disruptive, but then take up again. And if you look at what happened with Canada, for instance, and canola oil, you can't now get canola oil because Canada's reserves have been absolutely drained because China is importing it. And this was way before the cover and the hostages situation was sold. So there's also, we should never forget that displacement trade happens. Okay, so Australian barley gets slapped with terrorists. And so what happens? They export it to Saudi Arabia. So Australia's total barley exports don't really suffer. Yes, wine does because wine is in plentiful supply in the world. But other areas, I mean, this year, for instance, Australia's wool quota with China Group. New Zealand strangely stayed the same, but anyway. So my point is your export trade does not suffer, except in certain specific companies and areas, but overall trade continues. Second, you will hear a lot of people say, well, we better not offend China because otherwise, we won't get Chinese investment. And that will be an absolute disaster. I'll hold on a second. As of the current most recent figures, Chinese stock of Chinese investment in the UK equates to 0.02% of investment in the world. And in fact, Chinese investment in the UK is not a matter of charity. It's done increasingly, certainly since Xi Jinping and the Communist Party tightened up in 2016, very much with China's own aims in mind, for instance, about getting hold of technology, in particular about getting hold of technology. But if you look at it from the UK point of view, or indeed from any country's point of view, really, there are four main reasons for why you would welcome investment into your country. And in the case of China, they really hardly apply. Firstly, money is expensive, is money expensive and you can't get hold of it. Therefore, you would want to get it. But it isn't, money is extremely, the price of money at the moment is extremely cheap. Secondly, you might want investment because it provides you with very good technology that you don't have. Well, the flow is the other way, certainly at the present. Thirdly, you might want management expertise that you don't have. And that's why we benefited so much, for instance, from some of the Japanese car companies and they're just in time inventories and their methods of investment, of management. But the UK industry is not benefiting from Chinese management. On the contrary, it's probably the other way around. And fourthly, jobs, the creation of jobs. Well, if you look to the period pre-COVID and the three years pre-COVID, according to DIT, the number of jobs created in the UK over those three years was 9,400. Now, that's not to sniff at them. But it isn't a vast number. It really isn't a vast number. And in fact, in the third of those years, it was 1900, so it was actually decreasing. And I challenge you to name me a Greenfield site investment of an industry on a scale of sort of Honda or Nissan or something that's brought a large amount to the UK. So, yes, we welcome Chinese investment if it's in the right areas and for the right reasons. But let's not kid ourselves that we can't get on without it. The third reason is you will hear the city talking about, but there's mammoth growth to come in financial services exports. And we really must not offend China in that aspect because the city and services are so important to us. Yes, there is mammoth growth to come because if you consider that currently the city's financial exports of its total global financial exports, 0.4% of it is connected with China. Then from such a low base growth can only be quite large. And let's not actually forget that the city's financial exports constitute only 10% of the UK's total financial exports. So the city's financial exports to China are 0.04%. We have a stock connect between the London stock market and Shanghai, a course of great celebration and it's set up. To date, there are only two shares being traded on it. The renminbi internationalization is frequently trotted out as a reason for why we must be so nice to China. Current about 2% of the world's international transactions are using the RMB, but the internationalization of the RMB is a long, long, long way ahead and won't happen until China opens the capital account. And I very much doubt that's going to happen in the next decade. So don't let's not forget that the city has very considerable attractions and these will not diminish. And if China needs the city, which it does in some aspects, it will continue to use the city. So those advantages of the city will not go away. They're there to be used, but they shouldn't be exaggerated the relationship with China. Fourthly, well, our universities are thoroughly dependent on Chinese students. And if we misbehave, the tap will be turned off and will be in terrible trouble. Well, first of all, I don't think Xi Jinping in the Communist Party in any way likes the fact that so many of its students go abroad to study abroad and get exposed to spiritual pollution and the way things are going in terms of control of education in China and control of society. I'm sure that if he was able to, maybe he will try. I don't know. Xi Jinping would love to turn off that tap, but it wouldn't be aimed at the UK. It would be aimed globally. We, the Communist Party, don't want so many of our students going abroad. So that's not relevant to how our policy is configured with China. Now, would, would nevertheless, the CCP use it as a specific weapon against UK universities still allowing Chinese students are going abroad but simply not to the UK? Well, it's possible, but I think that if you look at Chinese parents and their desires for their child and whether that child might be educated, if they're going abroad, you want, firstly, a very good education and the UK supplies that. And on the whole, you want education in an English speaking country because that's an extremely useful skill. And oddly enough, the main countries that fulfill those two conditions are the United States, the UK, Australia, Canada, and to a certain extent, New Zealand. So I think that threat is exaggerated. And of course it makes, but it does make sense anyway for our universities to prepare themselves or at least not to be too dependent upon anyone's supply, just as any business will not, if it's got any sense, rely, let's say, exclusively on Sainsbury's because Sainsbury's might take the contract elsewhere and then you're in trouble. And we shouldn't also forget that Chinese demographics are going to mean that the supply in the longer term is going to fade away. Next area we hear is, well, if we don't do what the Chinese Communist Party wants, our tourist industry, which is, I mean, earns very considerable amounts that will be hit. Well, of course it's being hit by COVID at the moment, but let's assume that all things return to normal. The normality is that those countries which have been hit by Chinese Communist Party over tourism have been those that received most tourists in the form of package tours. 88% of pre-COVID tourists to the UK were not on package tours. And the question is whether the Communist Party is going to be able to limit the wishes of ordinary Chinese who like to come to the UK. Tourism might be said to be the opiate of the masses and depriving of the opiate would be a very unpopular and possibly dangerous thing to do. So I'm not convinced that that is as big a threat. And the sixth threat that people talk about is, well, if we don't cooperate with China, they won't cooperate with us on climate change and they're very capable of using that issue to gain leverage on others. I've always been very skeptical of this argument because by size of effect and by numbers of people affected, no country in this world would suffer more by a rise in sea levels. You only have to look at the map of Shanghai and Jiangsu area to see what would happen and what an appalling catastrophe it would be for China as well as the rest of the world. The CCP is well aware of that. I think the CCP attitude to climate changes every bit as serious as ours. You might not necessarily think so as a result of what's happened at COP26. But like any set of politicians, I suggest that the CCP tends to put greater emphasis on the short-term threats and prioritizes them over the long-term, even the threats, even though the threats are more serious. But I don't doubt personally that the Communist Party is very serious about climate change and whatever we do about climate change as the UK, whether it's in relation to China or not, it's not going to consider us so much as its own interests and those interests are aligned with the rest of the world when it comes to climate change. So I think that all this needs to be looked at and one of the measures that I think we need to think about as policymakers is to research this in clear depth, seeking truth from facts, not being influenced by propaganda. And I hope that one of the things that the government is doing is either doing that research itself or commissioning it from unbiased sources because if you have the wrong view on it and let's be fair, I may have the wrong view on it. All I'm saying is government go out and make sure you have the correct view on it because it's crucial to the formation of policy. So very quickly, and I hope Steve, let me see, how's the time going? I ought to move on briefly to what should the government be doing if it may well be doing it, but is it doing it fast enough to come up with the sorts of policies and strategy? Very obviously the first thing I think is get a strategy, have a set of policies, have them agreed and implemented across all government departments because quite clearly China does affect just about every element of government and quite clearly we haven't been joined up in the past. You only have to look at the flip-flops over the Huawei decision to know how badly the United government was on that. And the other point about a strategy is that while of course certain areas by necessity must remain confidential, most of it should be transparent so that not only government departments but academia, business, China itself knows where we're coming from and where we stand. It's also got to be kept up to date and it should be coordinated with all regions and localities. One of the big sort of strategies of the Chinese Communist Party is to bypass central governments and it's for that reason that Australia recently passed a foreign relations bill which gives central government the power to cancel agreements reached by local level governments and even publicly funded universities if they undermine national security. So we also need to think about how we coordinate policy but not just at the sort of central, vital level, but what's happening in Scotland or Northern Ireland or Cardiff or in Manchester or other cities. I've talked about the need to understand the CCCP better. What specific things should the government be doing? Well first of all, I think it needs to give long-term encouragement to the study of China and that means at the school and university level. Numbers of people studying Chinese Mandarin language are falling. There's an extremely good proposition being worked up which so far the government has rebuffed to make a Chinese civilization A-level on the lines of the classical civilization A-level. So you don't actually study Latin and Greek but you study classical civilization. Well our relations with the Romans and Greeks aren't nearly as important to us in the immediate term as those with the Chinese. We need a classical Chinese, a Chinese civilization A-level as an entry for people, young students to become interested in China and then go on from there to learn the language. It's the sort of thing that the government should be supporting those sorts of initiatives. In understanding the CCCP better, I think the government should be strengthening, it's asking itself whether its links with think tanks and academia are sufficiently streamlined and strong. We're going to have a lovely incident here where as one of two British officials who had actually worked in the EU, I worked in the EU delegation in Beijing. I was rung up a year or two ago, this was after I'd left by a friend of mine who said Charlie, I've been asked to the cabinet office because they're doing a paper or something on EU China strategy. Can you give me some tips as to what I might say because you've worked in the EU? I said, well, the first thing you might say is why not invite the two officials who've actually worked in the EU because I haven't been invited to this meeting and I'm one of the two of them. So, you know, get your links sorted out was the message from that one. But is there room for the secondment of more experts from academia or think tanks or wherever from business? And yes, I know there are problems with getting through the vetting process which is extremely complicated, but put more money and priority into that because this is an important area. I've talked about the need for government to carry out and commission more research. I hope for instance, and I think they are working on questions like what are the essential supply lines and resources and goods where in the UK must be independent from China because otherwise it is far too great a hold over us. It's that sort of area. And finally, in this sort of getting better informed, is the government doing enough on open source intelligence work? In other words, is the government belling cat competent? I suspect it isn't. I think there are some very rudimentary efforts going on. If you look at how much these days can be learned by a sensible, clever, in my view, I'm not a technologist, exploitation of open sources. I mean, the work, for instance, that Sheffield Hallam University has been doing on slave labor in Xinjiang, extraordinary stuff. Very useful. Or what Roosin, my own organization, colleagues have done on breaking of North Korean sanctions by China. You can establish an extraordinary amount. And I don't think the resources are being devoted by government to that. And if it doesn't want to set up its own, or doesn't have the resources to set up its own unit in depth, we'll buy it in. It's not that expensive to commission people to do it for you. The third area of getting this policy right and et cetera is, has the government got its existing structures better aligned to, and systems better aligned to reality? In the past, I've argued with others strongly that the powers of the National Strategy Implementation Group, I think its name has been changed to the Integrated Review Implementation Group, which sounds a bit like irrigation, I don't know, sounds awful, but whatever. The point is that I mean, I was always struck by Kevin Rudd when he became Prime Minister of Australia, one of the earlier things he did was make sure that at cabinet level there was a group that set China policy and ensured that it was implemented. And I'm not sure that the NSIG is really sufficiently strong. It's certainly been strengthened, but is it actually doing the business of coordinating government policy in the depth that it needs to be? I don't think it is. And another area where I think work could be done is within Whitehall, the training promotion of those with China experience and that's not just within the SCDO. If you look at Whitehall, there are very, very few it's hard to name any actually outside the SCDO of DG level officials, director general level officials who've got any China experience. I think there are three in the SCDO, maybe four. Three of them are currently ambassadors outside Whitehall. And again, a few years ago, it was the case that the sort of specialization that's required to become as China competent as necessary was not being awarded in promotion. If you were a specialist you wouldn't get into the senior grades of the civil service. That needs to change. Now let's two other things I'd like to say in this before I come to it in terms of measures that need to go into this policy and strategy and which to some extent may be happening but I'm not convinced that they're happening at the correct speed and depth. And the first is the protection of UK science and technology research. Of course we have the NSIA the National Security Investment Agreement and we also have a number of measures amongst which is the research collaboration and vice team and universities talking about the potential threats and protection of valuable technology where it can pinches on military or other forms of sensitivity. But I don't think either of those two mechanisms are really fit for purpose. And indeed it's partly because the NSIA is far too slow and far too high level and much of the important technology is coming or new ideas are coming in very small start ups which don't really meet the threshold and which are being hoovered up very early on in many cases and partly because there just isn't the teeth in the system where people go against the national security interest. So I think the research collaboration goes around universities and I'm not sure the idea to work on this particular area but these things are going on and they're going on big time and very one big time and I trust that one or two of them will see the light of day in the coming weeks because it really needs to worry people. So I think what is needed is a form of perhaps a body as we have with COVID of those that understand the technology that give advice to government and say look this sort of subject no way should there be cooperation on that or this sort of subject yes of course that's fine or this well it's a very grey area in this case we're going to come down against it or in this case we'll come down marginally allowing it to go forward and let's say and a quick one saying no this you do not cooperate because it has military uses or it has surveillance and oppression uses which we cannot accept and that should be backed up with teeth those would go against that and there are those they're doing it even now should be forfeit for it and allied with that I think is beefing up the work and others on the standards of conduct and the sorts of benefits that recording of benefits whether it's payment or benefits in kind or whatever which are received from foreign powers or academia or others because this is a parallel I think with MP's sleaze it's academic sleaze it's the selling of Britain's brains to harm the national interest it's it's happening and I think that in this sort of new life in which we find ourselves where we do want to cooperate with China on science and technology in a way that we didn't with Russia for instance with the Soviet Union we have to set limits and we have to put in systems which people won't like MP's when I was adviser to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee I had to list every single advantage pecuniary or otherwise that I gained to ensure that I had no interests I think the same applies to academics I'm afraid particularly in science and technology area if you're being flown out to China you'll be given an honorarium you'll be given free flights and sometimes holidays afterwards that needs to be recorded if your laboratory is being funded by Huawei that needs to be recorded openly and transparently another measure that I think is Australians have set up a counter foreign interference coordinators office I think we need to take the interference question a whole load more seriously than we do there is in fact in the security service an organisation called the joint state threat assessment team anyone heard of it I doubt it it was set up in 2017 actually it's very much aligned to the sort of threat that Russia brought in Salisbury and that sort of thing but what it doesn't do I don't think is really properly address the threat of Chinese interference and in that addressing that threat it's transparency and publicity which are probably our greatest weapons of defence and yet here we are with an organisation that's set inside the security service which no one has heard of and which is not out there on the ground with an executive body taking action to counter what is unacceptable behaviour another one we should strengthen the advisory committee on business appointments this is a committee which is meant to ensure that politicians and top civil servants don't hide their past expertise within a few years of leaving their jobs in ways that are inappropriate not least because in your last few years in a job you might temper policy in a particular matter thinking well if I'm too harsh on let's say Huawei they won't give me a job when I leave and it's very lucrative that really needs tightening up and so does the whole question of lobbying and the broader question of how the government is going to or should or should it impose some form of restraint when it comes to the question of values and how people behave there is increasingly a question of whether it is appropriate for UK people particularly ex-executive servants and ministers but not entirely to work for companies which are helping for instance in either the slave labour or the crimes against humanity in Xinjiang Huawei has three laboratories giant laboratories with the People's with the Public Security Bureau is it right for people to take jobs with them and use their expertise to promote what they're doing there I leave that as a matter of debate and finally Steve I know I've gone a little bit too long there are certain matters which I think won't wait and need to be done urgently I think that and some of that's going on already but are we sufficiently coordination with other free and open countries particularly in Europe but of course elsewhere in Japan, India Australia, the States there's a whole range of matters there particularly in terms of global governance WTO level playing fields in terms of investment in trade with China it's going on that sort of consultation and coordination but I don't think it's going on nearly great enough and finally there's Taiwan policy this is a matter that I don't think will wait as we can debate whether China is likely to forcefully unify with Taiwan in the next few years I don't think it will but it's not a risk that we should take and I do think that we should have a policy where we say very clearly to China there are 24 million people's lives here that cannot go against the force for unified against their wishes and if you do that will be sanctions and a break in diplomatic relations that will cost enormously both us and you this is a matter of Joe's strategy if Taiwan is absorbed then I think we could say that America will lose the western Pacific as an area of influence you can debate but that's a good or a bad thing it's also a matter of geo values are you prepared to allow should you be 24 million people to go against their wishes so I'm Steve I've gone on a bit long there I think there's undoubted progress in from 2015-2016 but I think there's a long way to go in terms of being clear for all of us and I think it needs far higher priority and urgency in the UK government agenda and I'm glad I'm no longer a civil servant because I think it's an extremely difficult problem well thank you very much Charlie there's a lot of very important food for thoughts there I wanted to push you some on the what I thought was very interesting part of your presentation and then I'll come to the questions we already got about three or four some of them compound questions in the Q&A box what I wanted to push you is that you talk about the UK needs to strike a balance between our desire to maintain good relationship with China and also about national security concerned and then you use the word divergence you said this is all about it is mainly about divergence in the rest of your talk I think you really focus much more on the kind of serious challenges that China poses to us are you being bitch to diplomatics there in what you are saying are you talking about something much more than divergence that you're talking about some serious competition of some form that we have in China therefore that we need to deal with it much more seriously in the last 20 minutes of your talk when you focus on what we should be doing yeah I think that it would be very unwisely for any country in the face of these very different systems not to have its defences in very good terms but I don't think we should shy away from the fact that this is potentially if the current trajectory of the Chinese Communist Party continues we are in likely to be in a very we could be in a very confrontational and hostile world that at least is a danger and it would be very unwise not to prepare for that I don't think anyone wants that and indeed we should do our best to minimise it but you'd be very foolish not to try to understand what the Communist Party is saying and where it's going and raising your defences accordingly okay thank you let me put some of the questions in the Q&A box to you we've already got quite a few there the first one is from Aram Ashraf and the question is about your report July report on empty threats in which you mentioned that the BLI does not exist and that it is a slogan a statement of aspiration could you expand a bit more on this here what are your recommendations to the United Kingdom Government cooperating in BLI related projects such as the China-Pakestan economic corridor well I know I'm deliberately being a little bit sensitive when I say that BLI doesn't exist I think it's in a sense what I'm trying to do is buy another form of very small scale propaganda on my part counteract what is a very good propaganda slogan on the Chinese part that because by use of that slogan along with it there's a whole load of assumptions which are just wrong this is the Chinese Marshall Plan that it's in the interests of it's done purely in the interests of development and other people that you can benefit from it etc etc what I wanted to always say is it doesn't exist but what does exist and what's really important is Chinese globalization that is going on and has been going on and rather than concentrate on the slogan look at the actual manifestations of that globalization look at the individual projects that China is doing some of them beneficial some of them maybe not so beneficial look at the fact that again with Belt and Road you concentrate people concentrate almost entirely on infrastructure that's what they assume but look at the so-called plan that came out in March 2015 there are five aspects to it every bit is important in a sense as building roads so whether it's standard setting whether it's finance I mean China now talks about a health belt and road or whatever I think the point is look at the search seek truth from facts rather than from slogans would be my answer to that now and with that in mind therefore I would say that when the UK comes to cooperate with China in its globalization I'm not using the words Belt and Road it's such a good slogan we have to look at the individual projects and where we can add value so that might be for instance in working with other countries looking more closely and advising on some of the environmental and labour safety standards health and safety standards health standards of some of the projects that are going on some of the development needs and it might be that we can work closely with Chinese companies on providing expertise in the management of a project or whatever bearing in mind of course largely where Chinese have done projects and given loans or whatever they have almost used exclusively their own companies but that just shouldn't stop us from working together so look beneath the slogan look at the reality and consider the individual cases where we can add value next question I pick comes from Jessica who is a grad student at SOAS what do you think the road of alliance formation is in the future of UK, China or Holland relations do you think that the cause from some senior parliamentarians to call for an alliance of democracies to counter Beijing's influence could plate into a new co-war dynamics well I think when I said at the end that the UK government must coordinate much more closely with like minded countries which shows my attitude whether you want to call it an alliance or not we have a lot of alliances already whether that's NATO or Five Eyes or whatever I don't think really matters but I do think the substance of it matters and I do think that yes we should work much more closely one of the deleterious things about Brexit is that along with it has come a sort of attitude that anything connected with the EU is to be avoided but we have to work very closely with the EU on China it's not easy because the EU itself is not very united I worked in the EU and experienced that at first hand but we must get together with certainly the bigger countries of it the important ones to try and strengthen ourselves by standing together you're always more strong if you stand with others part of the Chinese strategy in many areas has always been to divide and rule that in effect is a large part of the United Front strategy is that bringing us into a new cold war well of course that's what we are already being accused of it's an easy accusation to make and one could make it the other way around just read half of the Chinese documents any Chinese documents and it's quite clear that they do indeed have a cold war mentality if you want to play that that sort of name-gaming game but as I say I think that the systems are very very different and we will have to take that into account cold war not a cold war because the cold war we didn't trade much as Russia, we didn't have science and technology interests with them they weren't really important to us in terms of global goods like health or climate change etc all those things very obviously we have to work with China on but don't let our guard down next question I pick comes from somebody as a Hong Konger in the UK should the UK's policy on Taiwan be treated as a part of his policies towards China or should it be allied more with his democratic allies shouldn't Taiwan's experience and exposure be promoted among UK students and white or officials not only to promote diversity of news about the Chinese speaking world but also to help them become a more aware of this important East Asian economy in the UK yes good good question and one with which I have tremendous sympathy I do think that certainly white or officials were very much too much mainland centric and it's very important increasing important in fact to understand what Taiwan is and where it's coming from back in 1981 I started learning Chinese I was sent by the Foreign Office to learn Chinese I volunteered actually but and in those days we learned in came London France and in Hong Kong places which wasn't great for London and I said to the Foreign Office let me go to Taiwan and there was a big argument we can't let you go there because the mainland will be upset about it and eventually the ambassador in Beijing said no let him go let's see what it's like it was a good idea because I think it gives you a very strong sense of and it requires you to understand much more about Taiwan as an entity which is what I think lies behind this this question so yes I think we should definitely understand much more about Chinese we should Taiwan we should have much more experience of it we shouldn't be afraid about that we shouldn't be afraid of being brow beaten by China attacking us this is 24 million people increasingly the polls within Taiwan show what their thinking is they don't wish to be unified with the mainland and so I think that I've called elsewhere for a gradual re-evaluation of our policy towards Taiwan and the opposite of what happens in the South China Sea where China does slimy slicing if you can have the opposite of sort of slimy building I'm not saying that we should suddenly change everything and I think that would be too much to swallow but just as China slowly carves away little bits of preconceived notions so we too when it comes to Taiwan should gradually push the boundaries but as I said at the end of that talk we must make it absolutely clear to China that if they do anything that is pushing if it pushes unification then we will have to sanction and the states will and I have no doubt will follow but we need to make that clear now Right Nick's questions come from Steve Sinton you have talked about defence what could be the focus of UK defence policy this is too traditional based on physical assets and not enough on how the UK can best defend itself against the threats you have outlined Yes as one would expect from so I ask all these are very good questions and I do agree with the sentiment behind that it's not that we I hope ever going to get into a firing war with China and it's not really that the threat is so much it's a much more of a hybrid threat so I'm no defence expert but even when it comes to what would be regarded as traditional defence I have my doubts that aircraft carriers are the the sort of effective form rather than the sort of thing that China is really putting its efforts into in terms of drones underwater unmanned craft etc etc but beyond that it's I think it's absolutely right to point to the whether non-physical assets I think the UK is very well aware of the cyber threats and in terms of our defence I think our capabilities are probably one of the best in the world but again linking to the Taiwan question earlier I hope that we would do a lot more to work with Taiwan because Taiwan is at the front line of cyber attacks and other forms of interference so there's a lot of expertise there that we should tap into and I think behind Steve's question is something that I very much agree with which is look at the nature of the threat look at the nature of interference when it becomes unacceptable and make sure that you've got the right form of defence and I mentioned JSTAT the joint state threat assessment team it's such an unwieldy acronym but if you look at the very little that's come out about it it really doesn't seem to be best drawn up to defend against the sorts of threats that the CCP might use against us so it needs to be okay next question from Jonathan Fenby short sharp can the UK have any influence on the PLC's policy towards Hong Kong well I would like you Steve I too would describe Jonathan Fenby as short and sharp sorry Jonathan for the personal remarks I couldn't resist it not a great deal is the answer because it is physically part of the mainland what we can do I think we've done largely what we can do which is the BNO scheme which I think probably came as something that's a surprise to the mainland China and I think we should call it out its behaviour in terms of transgressing or disregarding an internationally agreed treaty lodge with the UN so beyond this sort of moral calling out and yes sanctioning of people who are behaving pushing forward the erosion of one country two systems at a frightening rate it's very difficult to think of any specific other measures if Steve or others have them please shout about them because if they're good pressure should be brought to bear on them push them forward next question comes from Norman Stockman he's referring to his time 15 years ago a secretary of the British Association for Chinese Studies during which time Kerry Brown our friend mutual friend had advocated that facts should lobby the government to make better use of the open source academic talent on China studies you said the same this evening what do you think is the main blockage in the government that result in such slow progress in this area? Well I think they're getting better undoubtedly there are many more consultations than perhaps people realise and are not necessarily people that necessarily see them when they go on but I wouldn't be complacent about them I think a lot more needs to be done as I said during the talk partly the blockages are people's time people in government are extremely busy and have many demands on them partly the I think possibly the coordination between different departments is not all that it might be partly as I said it's certainly in times perhaps of some of the longer term collaborations or exchanges there's this question of vetting where you can actually get people into working government for a stage which I think would be very useful but of course Covid hasn't helped but I think it's also just a change in culture of getting out and about in government and having many more of these that's not really answering your question Norman so I think as it were we should all be keeping the pressure up but let's not be too hard on my ex-colleagues in government I think they're doing an awful lot more than they used to OK next question from great surgeons much of your analysis focus on making the UK less susceptible to the PLC's maligned inference domestically can the UK or go-boat Britain play a more active road in pushing back against Beijing's challenge to go-boat norms or rules in which area could the UK be more effective I don't think that the government from what I see of it is in any doubt about the importance of this and indeed is putting a certain amount of effort into it particularly in say a desire to update the WTO or within the UN system various things there like the ITU and human rights areas but it's it's could we play a more active role well you can always play a more active role these are very difficult areas changing things like the WTO which is probably the most important area and it is trust has been quite vocal on the subject of the need to change China's status for instance to China from that of a developing country which it clearly is not in the same category anymore as some of the what we used to call the third world country so yes of course the UK can be more active in that I think that requires first of all a better understanding of the CCP which was something I talked about earlier on in the paper and a more focused attempt to do it but I don't want to sound complacent but I think that it is the government is aware of that and it is pushing it quite hard right next questions comes from Piddy in a different dimension and DZ questioner would like to stay anonymous what can be done about parliamentarians deploying a China strategy there that is growing anti-China sorry what can be done about parliamentarians who are taking a position on China which looks like being anti-China well first of all I think as I said in my talk differentiate between people who are being anti-China and people who are being anti the Chinese Communist Party there's a big difference and the former I think being anti-China verges on racism and is to be attacked wherever it's it raises its head I think it's perfectly legitimate for parliamentarians to have their views on the Chinese Communist Party and what its actions is doing so I don't necessarily agree with the premise that something needs to be done about our parliamentarians querying the actions of the Chinese Communist Party in the UK I think the more discussion on that and the more noise that's made on that in a rational fashion the better okay next question comes from Philip Mead he talks about the UK's China approach towards China on a range of issues appears to be quite assertive such as shutting China out of some area of investments in sensitive technologies and sending warships to the Indo-Pacific criticizing China on Xinjiang and Hong Kong etc the question then is how might the Chinese government or the Communist Party interpret the UK UK's assertiveness nest and do you think the UK government is prepared for the blowback in the future and if so in what ways well I don't think the Chinese Communist Party will at all appreciate any form of what it perceives as resistance to its interests and policies I think that was something that I tried to make clear in the talk that I gave paper on which I wrote again for the Council on Geo's strategy on what China wants in the UK that lays out a number of likely tactics that will come if we are and when we are seeing to go into those interests much of it huffing and puffing but am I expecting a blowback in the future I think that I'm slightly surprised we haven't seen more blowback hitherto it's possible that by taking Australia as the whipping boy the Communist Party is using that as a should yet as an experimental zone and seeing the lessons from that which it may then use and apply more broadly including against us but I sort of suspect that because we've come from the golden era and have yet to articulate a clear strategy or line until it's clear to the Communist Party that it's either overwhelmingly against their interests or maybe it's relatively within line of their interests then they are not going to make a decision to put us say in the doghouse if we're too much on the wrong side because the integrated review made clear that a strategy is not yet a place in theory the government is due to provide a clear statement and strategy of policy in spring next year spring is a very elastic thing so that could stretch somewhat just as the integrated review is originally due and came out about six months after its due date if not more so maybe once we've been more clear we will get a clearer reaction from China but as I try to say in this talk the bark is an awful lot worse than the bite right next question I pick comes from Peter Humphrey who is talking about some British universities have as a result of COVID-19 sending their students to learn to Mandarin to Taiwan instead of to mainland China and the question is do you think this should become a permanent practice under a more realistic UK-China relationship well I'm not sure I connect it with the UK-China relationship but purely from the point of view of language learning then I would advise people to go to Taiwan rather than the mainland for some strange and obvious reasons I do think that in learning Chinese language it's important to master the traditional characters as well as the simplified characters learning your Mandarin based purely on simplified characters and then trying to branch into traditional characters is a very difficult way of going about it another reason for going to Taiwan is that it is just that much easier to mix with people and to make friends and have conversations and practice your Mandarin and the third reason is it's very good to get a perspective from that side of the Taiwan Strait because the chances are that in learning the language and one hopes devoting your career to China in one form or another you will end up in the mainland for some time at that point it's useful to have seen what another Chinese based society is like Taiwan so there will be reasons for going to the mainland some of those have been weakened because you're talking about undergraduates Peter but I think if one were talking about graduates the research one might do in the mainland has been somewhat curtailed of late sadly which slightly weakens the reason to go there but China is a continent there's every reason to go to China ideally I would like to think that anyone who learns Chinese as an undergraduate would spend time in both places but if you're just talking about the language maybe I'm biased because I went to Taiwan when I learned my language but I think it's a very good place to learn okay thank you one last question and this comes from Grace if you don't feel comfortable with it that's alright Charlie the question is that Chinese students didn't begin to go to UK institutions until 2010 how come a relatively wealthy UK with a long and strong educational tradition would make itself so dependent on tuition fees from China so quickly I'd love to answer the question and we'll try but it's more one of competence than willingness I mean the fact is that overseas students pay an awful lot more than EU students did and UK students did so there's a willing source of money when anyone offers you money you tend to take it and I think that was unwise of UK universities to take it in such quantities or at least to have a dependency develop but I'm not sure that I can be more enlightening than that I'm sure Steve could be because you're in the business in a university but I would repeat that I think it's unwise for any business that is sadly can sometimes seem like a business whether you're a supermarket or a university to be dependent on one supplier well thank you Charlie I won't give a long answer to that one thing I would simply say is quite simply that until relatively recently we were talking about last few years China did not have the image that China has today and therefore it's not so difficult to understand how British universities were feeling quite relaxed in accepting Chinese students previously Steve can I just add one thing that I think the obverse of that coin applies to and that British universities should be not nearly as relaxed as they are about accepting some students and or monies for collaboration in certain specific areas and I'm referring there to areas that either have a military or a surveillance repression value so when a university takes money to study for instance gate recognition I find that morally wrong I think we're dealing with two things omitting students and engaging in collaborative research in sensitive areas I'm afraid we have run out of time I do apologize to those of you who have asked very good questions I have not been able to put to Mr. Parton please be reassured that your questions will actually be sent to him after the event and I would like to thank Mr. Parton for a very stimulating evening and for those of you who have taken parts to ask very very sharp and interesting questions and I hope to see some of you next week good night and goodbye