The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, will challenge Chinese officials in Beijing on Wednesday over their growing military support for Russia, but is intent that his meetings are seen as the renewal of a political dialogue that eventually revives UK trade with China. Before the meetings, he said no major international issue could be solved without China but added that the country had to live up to its international commitments and obligations. No significant global problem – from climate change to pandemic prevention, from economic instability to nuclear proliferation – could be solved without China, he said. “China’s size, history and global significance means they cannot be ignored, but that comes with a responsibility on the global stage. That responsibility means China fulfilling its international commitments and obligations.” It is the first visit by a senior British government member to China in five years, and reflects a general post-pandemic desire in the west to see if the relationship can be better managed. Gina Raimondo, the US commerce secretary who is currently in Beijing, is the latest of a string of US officials to visit the country this year, including the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken. The German foreign secretary, Annalena Baerbock, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, have both visited Beijing this year, with Macron favouring a policy independent of the US on the future defence of Taiwan. Cleverly’s room for manoeuvre is hampered by disagreements over the former British colony Hong Kong and by a vocal Conservative backbench group, including the former prime minister Liz Truss, who are demanding that the UK takes a tougher line on Chinese repression, and specifically the threat that Beijing poses to Taiwan and human rights. Truss, on a visit to Taiwan, called for an “economic Nato” to confront China. It later emerged she had been paid £80,000. During his leadership campaign, Rishi Sunak described China as the biggest long-term threat to Britain and promised to close the Confucius Institutes on UK university campuses, something he has failed to do.
Since then, the international trend towards dialogue with China has risked leaving a hawkish UK isolated. In a landmark speech at the Mansion House in April, Cleverly said the UK badly needed a dialogue with China to solve global issues such as climate change and international security. He believes disengaging with China would be an act of weakness not strength, and without exaggerating UK influence, the Chinese are prepared to listen to an influential global player, so long as the UK is seen as “consistent, clear, unambiguous and patient”. Cleverly, flying from the Philippines, will hold bilateral meetings with China’s foreign minister and director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, Wang Yi, and the vice-president Han Zheng. He said he wanted to discuss what the UK could do to try to bring the Russian invasion of Ukraine “to an appropriate conclusion where Ukraine has its sovereignty respected and the UN charter is upheld”. He would also like to hear China openly criticise Russia for its attacks on grain stores in the Ukrainian port of Odesa, which Britain says has led to the destruction of 250m tonnes of grain stock. Beijing has offered its own peace plan for Ukraine, parts of which western diplomats find helpful, including the call for Russia not to use nuclear weapons. But at the same time military trade between Russia and China is projected to surpass $200bn this year, creating a record high. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, exports of Chinese goods with potential military uses are this year more than three times higher than they were last year. EU officials claim Russian drones are full of US chips. Officials added that the issue of Taiwan is a legitimate international concern, and any change from the status quo would be catastrophic for the world economy due to the huge volume of trade passing through the Taiwan strait.
Cleverly is also hoping to engage the Chinese positively on the issue of climate change. As the world’s largest investor in sustainable energy and the largest emitter of carbon, the choices China makes will be critical to the world’s collective ability to solve the problem. China, the world’s biggest consumer of coal for power, generates more electricity from the hydrocarbon than it has at any time in the past five years. Western officials said the UK foreign secretary would also make clear that the human rights abuses recorded by the UN report concerning the Muslim population in Xinjiang was unacceptable, and would not be treated as an internal issue as the Chinese would prefer. He will also challenge Beijing on the erosion of autonomy, rights and freedoms in Hong Kong under the Beijing-imposed national security law, as well as other UK interests including sanctions placed on UK MPs. The UK House of Commons has voted to describe the suppression of China’s Uyghur people as a genocide. In 2021, the UK imported £63.6bn of goods from China, according to the Office for National Statistics. This accounted for 13.3% of all goods imports, making China the UK’s largest importing partner. There were £18.8bn of goods exports to China (5.8% of all goods exports), making China the UK’s sixth-largest exporting partner.