UK relations with China during the presidency of Xi Jinping

From ‘Golden Era’ to deteriorating relations

Over the last few years, the largely cordial relationship between the UK and China has deteriorated sharply.

In the previous two decades, regardless of the political make up of successive UK governments, the trend had been towards closer engagement and cooperation.

The high-point of UK-China relations was during the 2015-17 Conservative Government, when there was talk on both sides of a “golden era”.

However, growing controversy in the UK over the involvement of the Chinese multinational company Huawei in the UK’s 5G mobile phone network, along with mounting concern about the erosion of the “one country, two systems” status quo in Hong Kong, has dramatically changed the atmosphere between the two countries. Other important factors have been China’s human rights clamp-down against the Muslim Uighur population in the Western province of Xinjiang, as well as concerns about the threat of espionage and influence operations by China in the UK.

Xi Jinping’s leadership of China

Xi Jinping became President of China in March 2013, however, more consequentially in November 2012 he first assumed the two most powerful positions in China, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission (CMC).

Changes in leadership positions in China’s party-state are made every five years and normally follow a two-step process — the first occurring in the CCP and the second involving the government.

At the CCP’s 20th Party Congress held in October 2022, Xi was appointed General Secretary for a third five-year term and once again Chair of the Party’s CMC, affirming his dominance over the Party and the country at large. This third term broke the recent precedent of the country’s leaders serving only two-terms. Other key positions within the party were filled with Xi loyalists.

The National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislature, and a consultative body the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), met at the beginning of March 2023 for their annual “two sessions” meeting to ratify legislation and make appointments to the State Council, the executive branch of the central government. The bodies formally reappointed Xi for a third term as the country’s President, and also as Chairman of the state’s Central Military Commission (the party and state CMC are made up of the same individuals, and are essentially “one organisation with different brands”).

2021 Integrated Review

The UK Government’s March 2021 Integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy (Integrated Review, IR) described China as a “systemic competitor”.

The review said the UK will “do more to adapt to China’s growing impact on many aspects of our lives as it becomes a more powerful in the world”. And that the Government will invest in “China-facing capabilities” allowing the UK to better understand China and its people, and improving the UK’s ability to respond to the challenge it poses to “our security, prosperity and values – and those of our allies and partners”.

However, the review also emphasised the Government’s intention to continue pursuing a “positive trade and investment relationship” with China, while also ensuring that national security is protected. It also acknowledged that cooperation with China on transnational issues such as climate change is a necessity.

Integrated Review refresh

On 13 March 2023 the Government published a refresh of the Integrated Review (PDF). The refresh was produced in response to the significant world events that have taken place since the original strategy was published in 2021, including the war in Ukraine, and what the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, described in the refresh’s foreword as “China’s willingness to use all the levers of state power to achieve a dominant role in global affairs”.

Mr Sunak also warned of “China’s more aggressive stance in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait”.

The refresh describes an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge posed by China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) across almost every aspect of national life and government policy”.

The refresh says the UK must respond to two over-arching factors that have continued to evolve since the IR 2021:

• China’s size and significance on nearly every global issue which will continue to increase in the years ahead, and so its choices, including in areas like climate change, will have a profound impact on the UK; and
• The UK’s growing concerns about the China’s CCP leadership’s actions and intents including its strengthening partnership with Russia, disregard for human rights, military modernisation and actions in the South China Sea, and its espionage and interference activities in the UK.

Despite these factors the refresh also states that the UK “does not accept that China’s relationship with the UK or its impact on the international system are set on a predetermined course”, and that the UK’s preference is for “better cooperation and understanding, and predictability and stability for global public good”.

The UK will “engage constructively” with China when it aligns with the UK’s core national interests and with maintaining an open and stable international order, but wherever “the CCP’s actions and stated intent threaten the UK’s interests” the UK will “take swift and robust action to protect them”.

It will pursue this policy through a three-stranded ‘Protect-Align-Engage’ framework, stating the UK will:

• Protect its national security, strengthening protective measures in “those areas where the actions of the CCP pose a threat to our people, prosperity and security”, while also increasing protections for academic freedom and university research.
• Align with core allies and partners, recognising the UK has “limited agency to influence the CCP’s actions” on its own, with Mr Sunak in his foreword saying: “where there are attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to coerce or create dependencies, we will work closely with others to push back against them”.
• Engage with China bilaterally and in international fora, strengthen diplomatic relations, and pursue a positive trade and investment relationship while ensuring trading and investment is “safe, reciprocal and mutually beneficial”.

Alongside the refresh the Government announced extra funding to “further boost skills and knowledge for government staff on China, including on economic and military policy as well as Mandarin language skills”.

Indo-Pacific strategy

As well as these China-specific measures and policies, the refresh revisited the UK’s “tilt to the Indo-Pacific” outlined in the IR 2021. It stated that the UK will still prioritise the Indo-Pacific region, but argued the Government had delivered its ambition for the original tilt, and it was time to put its approach to the region on “a long-term strategic footing, making the region a permanent pillar of the UK’s international policy”. In particular, the refresh said the UK “believes that a free and open Indo-Pacific is one where a regional balance of power ensures no single power dominates”, and that the UK would work to align its regional strategy with the Indo-Pacific strategies of partners such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Canada, the EU, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the US.