NEW DELHI — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak raised “very strong concerns” with Beijing about China’s alleged interference in the U.K. parliament.
Sunak relayed his concerns to Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the G20 summit in India following the arrest of a purported Chinese spy working in the parliament.
Sunak told broadcasters in New Delhi that he expressed “very strong concerns about any interference in our parliamentary democracy, which is obviously unacceptable.”
He added that his meeting with Li in the margins of the G20 gathering was an example of the benefits of engagement rather than “shouting from the sidelines.”
“We discussed a range of things and I raised areas where there are disagreements,” Sunak said. “And this is just part of our strategy to protect ourselves, protect our values and our interests, to align our approach to China with that of our allies like America, Australia, Canada, Japan and others, but also to engage where it makes sense,” he said.
The Sunday Times reported that a parliamentary researcher with links to several senior Tory MPs, including the foreign affairs committee chair Alicia Kearns, was arrested under the Official Secrets Act.
The researcher was arrested along with another man on March 13. Officers from the Metropolitan police’s counterterrorism command, which covers espionage, are investigating, the paper said.
The researcher, in his 20s, was arrested in Edinburgh and the second man, who is in his 30s, was detained in Oxfordshire, according to the report. Police also carried out checks at an address in east London. Both men were held at a south London police station before being bailed until a date in early October.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which has pressed the U.K. government for a more hawkish stance toward Beijing, said it was “appalled at reports of the infiltration of the U.K. parliament by someone allegedly acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China.”
Kearns declined to comment but said on social media: “While I recognize the public interest, we all have a duty to ensure any work of the authorities is not jeopardized.” A person close to her told the PA news agency: “It is inevitable the Chinese Communist Party would target and seek to undermine parliament’s leading voices who have demonstrated the ability to constrain the CCP’s ambitions.”
The researcher also had links to security minister Tom Tugendhat, but is said to have had no contact since Tugendhat took on that role, according to the Sunday Times report.
At the end of August, James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, visited Beijing amid criticism from hawkish Tory MPs.
Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith said U.K. institutions were “deeply penetrated by the Chinese,” and that the government was “so desperately thinking about China as a business problem, they fail to realize how dangerously threatening China really is becoming.”
A meeting between Sunak and Li at the margins of the G20 had been discussed in the run-up to the summit, as POLITICO reported, but it was not confirmed until Sunday morning.
According to Chinese state-controlled news agency Xinhua, Li told Sunak that the U.K. and China should properly handle disagreements and respect each other’s interests and concerns.
LONDON — Britain has spent years seeking its place in the world after Brexit. Now it seems to have found a role … as a global conference center, where the great powers gather to talk.
Without a seat at the European table in Brussels, and also excluded from power-play summits between the EU and Washington, Britain hopes to wield its own “convening power” as it reboots its foreign policy ambitions.
Indeed almost every time a major global issue has raised its head of late — climate change; war in Ukraine, the rise of AI; the energy crisis — Britain’s answer has been to host another world summit.
Hot on the heels of this summer’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, U.K. government officials are now busy prepping for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s “major global summit on AI safety,” due to be held later this year.
That event will be followed next spring by a global energy security conference, timed to mark the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And all this less than two years after Britain played host to COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow.
This “summit frenzy”, as one European diplomat laughingly describes it, has not gone unnoticed in foreign capitals. But as more and more powerstry a similar middleman strategy, the U.K. may have a fight on its hands to stand out.
“This is really our bread and butter,” said Alicia Kearns, Conservative chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee. “One of our strongest diplomatic offers to the world is our ability to convene people. I think it’s a really important aspect of our diplomacy.”
“UK-hosted forums and conferences deliver real-world results, and position us as a leading voice on a range of important issues,” a U.K. government spokesperson told POLITICO, in response to questions about its summit strategy.
They are a “vital part of the diplomatic toolkit, giving us the opportunity to bring together governments and experts … and yield commitments which translate into real and lasting change for the better.”
Leading or following?
Hosting international conferences is hardly a new venture for the U.K. — but its efforts to act as global broker have been given fresh prominence in the wake of Brexit.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron’s Syria donor conference in early 2016 raised more than $10 billion to help pay for food, medical care and shelter in the war-torn country. Two years earlier, Cameron’s Foreign Secretary William Hague had gathered global ministers — and a Hollywood megastar — in London to combat the use of rape as a weapon of war. A follow-up was held in Westminster last year.
Britain’s big post-Brexit foreign policy reset, known as the “Integrated Review” and published in March 2021, made the national mission explicit. “Shaping the open international order of the future: we will use our convening power and work with partners to reinvigorate the international system,” the plan promised.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should not confuse a convening role with that of actual leadership | Pool photo by Henry Nicholls/Getty Images
Its author, the academic John Bew, continues to advise Sunak on foreign policy today. And multiple current and former advisers and diplomats agree that playing the role of eager host makes sense for the U.K. these days.
“People can pretty much rely that if they come to London for an international summit it will be well-organized,” Peter Ricketts, a former head of the U.K. diplomatic service, said. He cited Britain’s strong diplomatic reputation for drafting sound communiqués and brokering compromises.
But Ricketts noted Britain should not confuse a convening role with that of actual leadership. “The U.K. is not big enough to provide global leadership on any of these huge issues,” he said, referencing energy, climate change and artificial intelligence.
“Inevitably the Americans are going to be in the lead on setting governance for AI norms and so on,” he added.” The other players will be the Chinese, for their huge market power, and in third place — perhaps a long way behind — is the EU.”
COP out
Hosting a major global conference is one thing — making it count is another matter.
A former adviser to the U.K.’s foreign office, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the hosting of conferences “in and of themselves doesn’t hold massive value.” More critical is the follow-up work to ensure they “catalyze change or investment and serve a purpose.”
“It’s how you leverage it that matters, and its legacy,” the ex-adviser cautioned. “They take an awful lot of work, and done badly are just talking shops.”
Some believe there are lessons for the U.K. to learn from the aftermath of COP26, when the eyes of the world were on Glasgow for two weeks of high-stakes climate summitry.
Nick Mabey, who advised the U.K. government on COP26 and founded the E3G climate think tank, said the British played a “good game” in their organization of the event — but then appeared to drop “its own ball in the follow-up” as initiatives got delayed while the Conservative Party burned through three prime ministers.
“That did damage the U.K.’s reputation quite strongly among core allies, and other countries. It was seen not to have followed up as strongly across all of the things that it launched at COP26,” he said.
Mabey cited the forest declaration, an agreement which aims to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030, as an example of an initiative he thinks has fallen in priority.
But the U.K. government spokesperson quoted above insisted its “track record” on delivery “speaks for itself.”
“In the last two years alone, 190 countries agreed to phase down coal power at COP26, $60 billion was raised at the Ukraine Recovery Conference and an international declaration on ending Sexual Violence in Conflict was signed by over 50 countries.”
Unlike summits hosted by bigger powers — or meetings like COP that are part of an established United Nations process — Britain will, Mabey warned, really need to “hustle” to get a turnout at its own events.
“The international calendar is going to become a lot more crowded, as other countries will be doing the ‘middle power strategy’ to get their place in the sun too, whether that is the South Africas or Brazils,” he said.
Testing the waters
The European diplomat quoted at the top of the story, granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, agreed there is now a “little bit of summit competition” among the larger capitals.
Many leaders, he said, see the benefits of playing host: they find it easier to bag coveted bilateral meetings with important counterparts on the sidelines — especially useful for U.K. prime ministers who no longer have bi-monthly meetings with the EU27 in the calendar.
Italy has spied its own conference opportunity through the Rome Med — an annual gathering of Mediterranean leaders which began in 2015. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a global finance conference in an effort to unlock trillions of dollars for the fight against climate change.
But not everyone wants to be the first mover, the diplomat added, citing risks for the U.K. in taking ownership of hot-button issues like AI.
“You have capitals that don’t necessarily want to be the first to host a summit on a specific topic,” he said. “Maybe they want to host the second or the third, or further down the line, so that they can test the waters and see if that thing flies or it doesn’t fly.”
He added: “If a summit is a failure, it doesn’t look very good for the host.”
For Britain, still seeking its new place in the world three-and-a-half years after Brexit, it seems to be a risk worth taking.
The British parliament has for the first time referred to Taiwan as an “independent country” in an official document, breaking a political taboo as Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visits China this week.
The new language, adopted in a report published Wednesday by the influential foreign affairs committee of the House of Commons, risks a stinging backlash from Beijing and comes as Cleverly becomes the first top British envoy to visit Beijing in five years amid a frosty relationship.
Beijing has long denied Taiwan’s statehood, insisting the self-governing democratic island is part of its territory. Only 13 countries around the world recognize Taipei instead of Beijing diplomatically.
“Taiwan is already an independent country, under the name Republic of China,” the committee report says. “Taiwan possesses all the qualifications for statehood, including a permanent population, a defined territory, government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states — it is only lacking greater international recognition.”
According to Committee Chairperson Alicia Kearns, from the ruling Conservative Party, it’s the first time a U.K. parliament report is making such a declaration. “We acknowledge China’s position, but we as [the foreign affairs committee] do not accept it,” Kearns told POLITICO. “It is imperative the foreign secretary steadfastly and vocally stand by Taiwan and make clear we will uphold Taiwan’s right to self-determination.”
“This commitment aligns not only with British values but also serves as a poignant message to autocratic regimes worldwide that sovereignty cannot be attained through violence or coercion,” Kearns added.
The committee report criticized the government for not being bold enough in supporting Taiwan, calling on officials to start preparing sanctions with allies in order to deter Beijing’s military action and economic blockade over the island that supplies 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors.
“The U.K. could pursue closer relations with Taiwan if it were not over-cautious about offending the [Chinese Communist Party],” the committee said. “The U.K. should loosen self-imposed restrictions on who can interact with Taiwanese officials. The U.S. and Japan have shown that communication is possible even at the highest level.”
London should also work with Tokyo and Taipei for trilateral cooperation on cyber and space defence capabilities, it said.
On Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), of which Britain is a new member, the committee urged the government to campaign for Taiwan’s admission.
Meanwhile, the report also criticized the British government for keeping its China strategy under wraps.
“Given the publication by Germany of a China strategy, it is evidently possible for the U.K. government to publish a public, unclassified, version which would give the public and private sectors the guidance they are seeking,” it said.
Whitehall, it said, should be tougher on China’s “transnational repression” on British soil, such as sanctioning U.K. lawmakers or harassing dissidents.
Cleverly “must be absolute that defense is not an escalation, and that the U. K. will stand resolute and take action against any efforts at transnational repression,” Kearns said.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has stopped short of defining China as a broad “threat,” instead pitching it as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge.”
BALI, Indonesia — Rishi Sunak will invite Xi Jinping to collaborate more closely on global challenges in the first meeting between a British prime minister and Chinese president in nearly five years.
Sunak and Xi will hold a bilateral meeting Wednesday on the margins of the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali.
Ahead of the meeting — confirmed only 24 hours before it was due to take place — Downing Street insisted it was “clear-eyed in how we approach our relationship with China.”
The prime minister’s spokesman said there was a need “for China and the U.K. to establish a frank and constructive relationship,” but stressed that “the challenges posed by China are systemic” and “long-term.”
The two leaders are likely to discuss the war in Ukraine, energy security and climate change among other issues, No. 10 said.
Theresa May was the last prime minister to meet Xi, during a visit to Beijing in January 2018, at a time when Downing Street was still referring to the “golden era” of relations supposedly ushered in by David Cameron and George Osborne.
U.K.-China relations have worsened in the wake of China’s crackdown on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, the oppression of the Uyghur Muslim minority of Xinjiang province, and concerns about the security implications of allowing Chinese companies to build critical national infrastructure in the U.K.
News of the meeting comes after Sunak softened his language on China and suggested he was abandoning plans to declare the country a “threat” as part of a major review of British foreign policy.
In response to questioning from POLITICO during the trip, Sunak described China as “a systemic challenge” but stressed that dialogue with Beijing was essential to tackling global challenges such as climate change.
Speaking to Sky News Tuesday, the PM said: “I think our approach to China is one that is very similar to our allies, whether that’s America, Australia and Canada — all countries that I’m talking about exactly this issue with while we’re here at the G20 summit.”
Sunak’s spokesman said Tuesday that the prime minister would “obviously raise the human rights record with President Xi” at the meeting.
But he added: “Equally, none of the issues that we are discussing at the G20 — be it the global economy, Ukraine, climate change, global health — none of them can be addressed without coordinated action by the world’s major economies, and of course that includes China.”
Xi has already held bilateral talks with various leaders during the summit | Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Xi has already held bilateral talks with U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese among other leaders during the summit.
In addition to the talks with Xi, Sunak will also hold meetings with Biden, Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, warned that the U.K. was “drifting into appeasement” with Xi.
“I am worried that the present prime minister, when he meets Xi Jinping, will be perceived as weak because it now looks like we’re drifting into appeasement with China, which is a disaster as it was in the 1930s and so it will be now,” he said. “They’re a threat to our values, they’re a threat to economic stability.”
Bob Seely, another Tory MP and member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, added: “We need to talk to nations, especially those that may challenge our values and stability, but it is dangerous to normalize relations when they are not normal.”
But Alicia Kearns, chair of the Commons foreign affairs select committee and a member of the China Research Group, welcomed Sunak’s meeting with Xi. “It is important they meet to prevent miscalculations,” she said. “We cannot simply cut off China, we must work to create the space for dialogue, challenge and cooperation.”
