The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) summit in Taipei this week is a strong reminder of how the world’s democracies have radically shifted their views on Beijing over the past five years, from wide-eyed faith that increased economic ties would turn it into a “responsible stakeholder” in the rules-based order, to recognition that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) China seeks to overturn that order and that democracies need to band together to defend it.
Nowhere has this shift been more marked than in the UK, whose parliamentarians cofounded the IPAC and have been among the most vocal voices against Beijing’s expansionism, and in defense of the rules-based order and support of Taiwan.
However, this was not always the case. In 2015, the UK and China were embarking on a “golden era” of Sino-British relations. The UK would be Beijing’s “best partner in the West,” then-chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne said. Then-prime minister David Cameron’s government saw China’s rise as an economic opportunity, but the UK’s cozying up to it came at a price — human rights and security concerns were left to the side. During a visit to Singapore that year, Cameron was invited by the government to comment on ongoing South China Sea security issues, but he declined for fear of upsetting Beijing. Chinese dissidents were also denied visas to the UK.
The UK’s supplicant behavior was not uncontroversial. Cameron’s former advisor Steve Hilton called it a “national humiliation,” but the criticism was largely limited to officials and policy specialists. The government and the majority of British parliamentarians were on board with the “pivot to China.”
That all changed in 2019 and 2020. China’s brutal crackdown on the Hong Kong democracy protesters shocked the British public and politicians, showing a side of Beijing they had willfully ignored. This was compounded by widespread anger over the COVID-19 pandemic and evidence suggesting the Chinese Communist Party hid its origins from the world. Parliamentarians began seriously questioning the government’s relations with China. In April 2020, moderate Conservatives founded the China Research Group (CRG) to provide “fresh thinking about issues raised by the rise of China.” In June, foreign policy hawks founded the IPAC alongside seven allied legislatures.
Despite these initiatives, UK foreign policy was still stuck in the “golden era” paradigm, although pressure was growing domestically and from allies for the UK to change its China policy. In July 2020, an alliance between Conservative foreign policy hawks, including IPAC cofounder Iain Duncan Smith, and the US convinced then-British prime minister Boris Johnson to ban Huawei from the UK’s 5G phone networks. This move marked the definitive end of the “golden era.” It also altered the strategic horizons of UK foreign policy.
The evolution of the IPAC is a microcosm of the paradigm shift on China in the UK and democracies around the world. It has grown from a small, hawkish grouping emphasizing security to a consensus-building, non-partisanship grouping with members drawn from across the political spectrum, and from 18 members in eight legislatures in June 2020 to more than 240 members across 39 legislatures today.
Thanks to the CRG, the IPAC and investments in developing the UK’s “China literacy,” recognition of the challenges China poses has increased. This has brought awareness about Taiwan’s situation, and in tandem with Taipei’s considered diplomacy, British parliamentarians have formed a cross-party consensus that support for Taiwan’s democracy must be frontline to the UK’s China policy, in concert with the UK’s allies.
Supporting Taiwan had once been marginal in the UK, secondary to prioritizing commerce with Beijing, but not anymore.
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