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China and the West

Mr. Taylor, we normally tend to meet at the parliamentary breakfast club, so it is a great pleasure to serve under you. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on introducing this important debate. He spoke with a great deal of knowledge and he was very thoughtful. Although he rightly concentrated on the financial and business side—not least because of the constituency that he represents—he also ranged widely. The debate is about the implications for UK policy of relations between China and the west, but colleagues have not mentioned the fact that there is no unified western approach towards China. That is hardly surprising because, despite our close relations with some EU colleagues, some Commonwealth countries and the United States of America, there are differences. There are political differences and there are differences because we compete with each other, often over economic relations. As the debate was proceeding, I was reminded of my time as a fresh-faced undergraduate studying history 40-odd years ago. One special subject that we covered was China and the powers, and one of the books that we were invited to read was "The Arrow War" by a young, thrusting mandarin at the Foreign Office called Douglas Hurd. Listening to our tutors, I was conscious of the fact that we often had a very different world view from our Chinese friends, given our history and culture, as well as the influence of the Chinese Communist party. In meetings that I have been lucky enough to have with her excellency the Chinese ambassador, visiting Foreign Ministers from China and visiting party officials—this is not an exact analogy, and colleagues will say that I am trying to set up China in a certain way, but that is not what I intend—China has reminded me to an extent of pre-1914 Wilhelmine Germany. The Chinese are incredibly proud of what they have achieved, they are very conscious of their history and they are very conscious and fearful of chaos and disunity. Perhaps they overcompensate for that outlook, because many of their policies are based on it. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) talked about military deployments towards Tibet, and a lot of China's foreign and defence policy is based not only Wilhelmine-style bravura, but on deep angst—a fear of chaos and of the fact that China could break up. That is not an excuse for us to pull our punches when we disagree with China, but it is behind a lot of the bravura. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster that the Chinese have a long-term strategic plan—that is how they think about things. The long-term strategic plan is to get themselves into a position where they have economic, military and political leverage. That does not mean to say that they want to fight large numbers of wars—I do not think that they do. However, they do want to get into the position that the old powers—Britain, France, Germany and the United States of America—were in during the 18th and 19th centuries and for most of the 20th century, and we should recognise that. In fact, we should inform the Chinese in our conversations with them that we know what they are about. They take a very hard-nosed and pragmatic view of finance, politics and military affairs. I want to take up a point raised by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who speaks on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. When one talks to the Chinese, there is an innate contradiction in the fact that China is still a one-party state, although there are now elections in the Chinese Communist party, as the Chinese are fond of pointing out. As the hon. Lady said, however, China's population—particularly its younger population—is at the cutting edge of interest in technology, the internet and everything else. The Chinese authorities therefore face a major problem in squaring the circle between very limited democracy and political participation by the population, major problems with large ethnic minorities and education. The younger generation of leaders is aware of that, but they do not as yet know how to deal with the issue, and we might be able to give them some advice in our talks with them. I forgot to congratulate the Minister on his new ministerial responsibilities. I have been a shadow Minister since 2005, and every time I blink there is a new Foreign Office Minister in front of me. Baroness Kinnock is now the new Lord Malloch-Brown, with responsibilities for Africa, but she will presumably also speak on Europe in the Lords. The Minister—like 007—will continue to deal with the rest of the world, although he will also speak more formally on Europe. However, we welcome him to the debate. Let me touch briefly on a number of other issues. Conservative Members fully support my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster. We have major national strategic interests in having good, close relations with China, but we should not be afraid to tell the Chinese—forcefully at times—when we disagree with them, because the Chinese do that to us. At times, they seem to think that we should pull our punches, but there is an equivalence. We should not necessarily be rude or denigrate the Chinese, but there are times in formal discussions when they should be made aware of our views. They will perhaps realise that the more they are drawn into international organisations. That may happen as a result of China's membership of the G20 or of some of the contradictions that China will face as a member of the UN Security Council. I want to touch briefly on four issues and four countries over which we have issues with the Chinese. The first, obviously, is Iran and nuclear proliferation. Iran is China's third-largest supplier of oil and it is crucial to China's economy. Earlier this year, China and Iran announced a $3.2 billion three-year natural gas deal. It is estimated that trade between the two countries rose from $400 million in 1994 to $29 billion in 2008. That means that relations between Iran and China are very close. [Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair] So far, the Chinese have been very reluctant to go along with any form of pressure or sanctions on Iran, but that is not to say that we do not need to continue to bring pressure and influence to bear on them. The Iranian regime might just listen—I put it no higher than that—to representations from China and Russia than to anything that we might say. The second issue, which I shall merely mention, because the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire has already discussed it, is the importance of China's role in climate change. Whenever we talk to Chinese Government representatives about climate change, their usual answer is that they do not wish to be lectured about it by the west. We have been climate polluters for 200 years, and the Chinese sometimes find what we say a little rich. As my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) said, however, we may have a lot to offer the Chinese in specific technological areas. I will not touch on the global economic crisis, because my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster made some good points about it. The final specific point that I want to make—once again, this is a sensitive area, but we should put the matter on record—is that there is no doubt that as part of a strategic plan the Chinese Government are only too happy, and would see it as perfectly legitimate, to involve themselves in what we would now call economic and military espionage. That is part and parcel of leverage. There is a vast amount of evidence for that, particularly in the United States of America. The Chinese Government or Chinese companies, either indirectly or directly, by investing in western companies, have been involved in knowledge transfers—what we should call illegal knowledge transfers. They are only too well aware, from having watched the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the old kinds of military conflicts are not likely to be relevant in the future, and therefore the Chinese military is heavily into thinking about ways of countering the kinds of advantages that the United States military has in asymmetrical warfare. The Chinese watch that very closely, and, indeed, only recently I read a translated volume by some Chinese military officers who wished to perfect a system in which if they were ever involved in a crisis involving other countries—the book did not spell out which countries—they would be able literally to close down a power's information technology. One thinks of that as the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters. I see the Minister frowning. I can just imagine him here in the 1930s, hearing about the idea that somehow or other mechanised units might go through the Ardennes. There would have been much tut-tutting from the Minister, saying that it was a physical impossibility. That is not a fantasy world at all. I believe that it is something into which the Chinese are putting vast investment. Once again, we should make it quite clear to them that we know what they are doing, and perhaps we should think about how we are to address it. I want to touch on some specific countries, the first of which is Sri Lanka. In its war against the Tamils, Sri Lanka relied heavily on Chinese help—not only political but economic and military. China has a long-term interest in the development of Sri Lanka, and not least in acquiring a major naval base. In May 2009 China voted against a resolution by the UN Human Rights Council calling for an investigation into allegations of war crimes by both sides during the military conflict. Once again, that is an area in which we are in conflict with China. By "we" I mean, of course, the United States of America and most of our European allies as well. What discussions have the UK Government had with representatives of China about its support for the President of Sri Lanka? Have concerns about China's actions at the United Nations been raised by UK officials? Given that the EU Commission will decide later this week—in fact in a few days, on 15 October—whether Sri Lanka can retain its generalised system of preferences plus trade concession, what assessment has been made of how effective that will be in persuading Sri Lanka to improve its record on human rights? Will Sri Lanka simply turn to countries such as China to support its textile industry? Secondly, I want to mention Burma. China is Burma's largest trading partner, and the country's biggest source of foreign direct investment. China has repeatedly shielded Burma from action by the UN Security Council. How can China's deep financial ties with the ruling military junta, in the form of diplomatic support, trade links and the sale of military hardware, be harnessed to ensure stability and economic development in the country? Last month the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced that the US would enter into dialogue with the Burmese junta and would effectively consult and seek the help of countries such as India and China as part of its new policy. Did the US Administration discuss the formulation of their new policy with officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office? In June 2007 China hosted low-profile talks in Beijing between representatives of the United States and Burma. What can be done to persuade China to continue to pursue similar initiatives? The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire touched on the issue of Sudan and Darfur. China, as we know, has very close relations with Sudan and has invested heavily in the area. Once again, it has provided direct military support, including jet fighters, to the Sudanese Government. Have the UK Government urged the Obama Administration to make Sudan a priority in their discussions with China, given the sheer humanitarian horror that is going on there? What assessment has been made of China's support for the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan? How closely are the special representatives from China and the UK working to ensure peace, stability and development in Sudan? I have raised my questions not to try to trick the Minister—he is too good to be tricked, and he has some clever officials to provide him with briefing notes. I have raised them because we are directly involved in all those issues, which are raised time and again in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber of the House. Indeed, Mr. Speaker himself has taken a direct personal interest, particularly in Burma. It is right and proper that we should be seen to raise these questions, not in a hostile way, but so that, hopefully, the representatives of the Chinese embassy in London will see that they are being raised and are important to British parliamentarians. We do not see those questions as a way to destroy relations between China and the UK, but they are issues on which there is strong public feeling and opinion in the United States and western Europe. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster for raising this important debate. Our relations with China are very important. They should be frank and robust and British Governments, of whatever political party, and the Foreign Office and other Government Departments should attempt to have a long-term strategy towards China, just as China has a long-term strategy towards us.