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East Asia

For the record, I declare an interest, in that my wife works for you, Mr. Benton, and has, I believe, for 17 years. I do not know how she manages it. First, I thank the Select Committee members, not just for their work on this report but for the productive working relationship that I have had with them since I became the Minister responsible for this and other areas following last spring’s reshuffle. I hope that that relationship will continue. We are not in each other’s pockets, but we want to co-operate and be as effective as we can in our work on the countries and regions that we visit in our different roles. In that regard, rather than give the speech that I prepared for this debate, I shall use some of its opening remarks and then systematically go through the issues that have been raised by right hon. and hon. Members. I shall try to give a flavour of what we are doing, and also give accurate, open and transparent answers to questions. I apologise if some questions are not answered by the end of the sitting. I shall check Hansard and write to the Committee about any issues that I inadvertently leave out or do not cover because, to be honest, more and better information can be made available in writing. I hope that hon. Members will accept that. Hon. Members may be aware that yesterday the European Standing Committee had a very lengthy debate on EU-China relations and a question and answer session of more than an hour as part of the scrutiny process. That, added to today’s debate, means that I have had a marathon session this week, and rightly so; not just on China but on other countries that make up an important, dynamic region of the world. I have visited the region since my appointment, and I shall be going back later this year. I have put in place a system whereby I will offer an opportunity to businesses, non-governmental organisations and the Select Committee to meet with me, in advance of my visits to regions or countries, to discuss what they think the objectives and priorities of the visit should be. I shall work our discussions into the programme and report to those organisations when I come back in a transparent way on the information and responses that I have gathered. In addition, we will put in place a work programme after the visit so that there is sustainable follow-up on the issues that have been raised with me. I have had put in place across Whitehall a Committee to engage with all Ministers and senior officials on my visits from now on, not just in respect of China and India but across all areas of interest, to ensure that there is clarity about the objectives of the visits and transparency on their outcomes, and to ensure that Ministers and senior officials, whatever Department they work for, are able to take matters forward on a sustained basis. That is very important. Many of the issues that have been raised by Members today cannot be resolved in a single meeting, whether of Ministers, Prime Ministers or Presidents. Much of the work that colleagues have spoken about, which I shall go into in detail, is the result of years of activity, but such activity can be improved if there is better co-ordination and sustainability of the intellectual, organisational and political investment put in by the Government, whether at ministerial or senior ministerial level. If in the future the members of the Select Committee want to consider any of the areas and countries that I visit, I would be more than happy to meet with them to discuss the work programme and the objectives that I would like to set for the visit, and to report to them on my return. My visit gave me a useful opportunity to represent the concerns not just of the Government but of UK business in areas such as intellectual property rights enforcement, local customs and tax arrangements. I underlined the importance that the UK Government attach to sustainable development and climate change in my meetings with Ministers in China—I shall deal with that later in more detail—and I was able to facilitate the sharing of experiences in those areas, and to stress the need for urgent action. In talks with Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui, I expressed a desire to enhance our bilateral dialogue on human rights, and to develop our dialogue on Africa. I stressed the need to ensure that aid to Africa is spent in a co-ordinated way and in line with the Gleneagles objectives, and we agreed to increase co-operation in that area. Again, I shall discuss that later. I was also able to take forward work on the UK-China strategic dialogue that took place in September between the two Prime Ministers, at which energy and climate change working groups were established. A work programme is now under way. I have regular discussions with the Chinese ambassador to London, Mr. Zha, in which we cover the full range of issues in our bilateral relations. I shall meet with him this weekend in advance of the human rights dialogue meetings that will take place on Monday, and the visits to Belfast by the Chinese dialogue team on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Government welcome the detailed work undertaken by the Foreign Affairs Committee, and its scrutiny of the Government’s work to engage with and promote UK interests in east Asia. The focus of the report was, understandably, on the impact that the rise of China is having in the region, more of which later. However, it is fitting that the Committee has not ignored the importance of the region as a whole to our international priorities. Alongside our EU partners, the UK has direct interests at stake in promoting harmonious and co-operative relations among the key players in the region. Specific areas of focus include the full and verifiable dismantling of the North Korean nuclear programme through the six-party talks process. When I was in China, I had discussions about those talks and attended a meeting at the site where the talks will continue next week. We have been encouraging both sides to work towards the peaceful resolution of the dispute about the Taiwan strait. I shall say more about that later. In an initiative begun under the UK presidency, we are working closely with EU member states to develop a more co-ordinated and coherent approach to emerging security challenges in east Asia. That work is informed by the EU’s dialogue with key regional partners. The Government’s regular high-level exchanges and dialogues with key players in the region include discussion of regional security issues, and they are complementary to the EU process. Both Japan and South Korea are central to our efforts to deliver regional security, not least as participants in the six-party talks. We enjoy close trade, investment, and science and technology relationships with Japan and the Republic of Korea. They are underscored by our shared democratic values and supported through regular high-level exchanges, and visits at all levels. The Deputy Prime Minister made a timely visit to the region in October, travelling to Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. That visit provided a useful opportunity to discuss regional security in the light of the North Korean nuclear test earlier that month, and to take forward the work of the UK and Chinese taskforces. We look forward to working closely with Japan during its 2008 presidency of the G8, during which the Japanese will receive the report from the Gleneagles dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development. The recent UK-Japanese co-operation on military and logistics work in southern Iraq has been a great success. We look forward to further work alongside Japan in the international sphere, and we shall continue to support reform of the UN Security Council to include Japan as a permanent member. The Hong Kong special administrative region continues to be a major UK business partner, and UK Trade and Investment maintains a strong programme of sectoral activity there. I visited Hong Kong as part of my process of engagement. We enjoy a positive, forward-looking relationship with the region, continue to take seriously our ongoing responsibilities towards its people, and attach great importance to its autonomy and prosperity, and the rights and freedoms of its people. At my suggestion, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy has begun to consider practical ways of working with Hong Kong’s political parties to support their development. We believe that the best way to safeguard Hong Kong’s success is for it to advance to a system of universal suffrage as soon as possible. We are concerned about the current stalemate and hope that the Hong Kong and mainland Chinese Governments can make early and substantial progress towards universal suffrage in Hong Kong. I made other remarks about that issue in the European Standing Committee yesterday—perhaps hon. Members would like to put them together with these comments—and expressed my concerns and worries. In my view, the political parties in Hong Kong are unable to engage effectively with the citizens about the importance of their rights in a universal suffrage system, or to organise political activities around the issues that are relevant to their day-to-day working lives. They need to be more proactive in such areas.