Why UK-China relations need regular contacts

Editor's note: David Henig, a special commentator for CGTN, is the director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political Economy. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

There is much to celebrate in UK-China trade relations. Millions of Chinese citizens consume a UK service in enjoying watching the English Premier League every week. Many thousands have received higher education in UK institutions. Scotch whisky is growing in popularity as one of the UK's landmark products.

Many Chinese products meanwhile are successfully exported to the UK, most recently the electric vehicles that are a benefit of a government choosing not to follow others in placing penalty tariffs. UK consumers are happy with high quality products that can be sold at reasonable prices, particularly at a time of pressure on the cost of living.

China is the UK's third largest source of imports and fifth for exports, with bilateral trade value of goods reached $103.7 billion. This relationship matters to both sides, if to slightly different degrees, for the UK is one of China's top 20 trade partners if not quite as high in the list.

This is a major part of the background to the visit of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to China. His government places a high emphasis on economic growth and sees the enhancement of trade ties as a route to delivering this. Although the nearer markets of Europe are an understandably higher priority, a recently negotiated free trade agreement with India demonstrates that sights are also set on more distant markets.

Previous UK prime ministers also presided over trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, as well as accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. China is one of several candidates for future membership, though this is likely to be a process over a number of years.

At this stage the UK and China are not talking about formal bilateral trade negotiations towards a free trade agreement. Both sides do, however, have trade irritants that they hope the visit can help to address. On the UK side, these are, for example, related to supporting trade in services such as through improvements to Chinese visa policies.

There is talk of a memorandum of understanding which could tackle this issue, as well as recognition of professional qualifications for accountants, designers and architects. Doubtless this will also encompass issues raised by China.

There continues to be strong support in the UK for open trade. This extends to respect for the rules of the World Trade Organization, where the country now has a membership independent of the EU. Clearly, at this point in time, there are other countries starting with the U.S. that have less belief, something that does cause issues for UK trade policy given a long alliance between that country and the UK.

Not that the UK is entirely resistant to protectionist instincts, with growing concern about the future of manufacturing employment that can be seen in many other countries. Today's open economy does create vulnerabilities for countries and specific localities, and these need to be the subject of ongoing discussions.

There is a new concept of economic security which is becoming an increasingly popular term across Europe, including the UK. Balancing the benefits of open markets while ensuring sustainable economies should not be something to fear. Indeed, one can consider in the future that there may be new rules at global level to enhance confidence that countries will not try to use their dominant supply or demand positions to harm others.

Such conversations are probably premature at this point between the UK and China, given that formal ministerial exchanges have only just started to become regular once more following the disruptions particularly caused by the pandemic as well as some concerns in the relationship. There is a markedly lower rate of engagement between the UK and China than that I experienced as a UK official working on China issues 15 years ago, and this presents an obvious opportunity.

Mistrust can build easily when there is insufficient engagement between governments and other societal organizations. Restarting a regular schedule of exchanges would be the best possible outcome from this visit, such that this becomes a much more typical event.

This may also help to improve one notable issue in the relationship, which is the difficulty that investors on both sides have found in some of their ventures. This should not come as a particular surprise, succeeding in distant markets is not straightforward and governments often need to provide support to make this work. Both the UK and China could be doing more to enhance the business interaction that would also support a stronger people-to-people relationship in the future.

At this stage, there are not the depth of contacts between the UK and China in order to make significant further strides in the relationship. Pathways of mutual understanding must be built upon a shared respect and trust that will take time to develop.

There will always be those in a society who are suspicious of foreign engagement, sometimes history tells us that these were wise voices. What the UK and China need to be working towards is to ensure that their relationship will develop in the future, which is why this visit of the Starmer is a very good step but there needs to be many more of them.

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