UK and China Relations in an Unpredictable World: An interview with Andrew Cainey

You may listen to this interview from HERE.

Andrew Cainey has lived and worked for most of the past twenty-five years in China, Korea and Singapore advising businesses and governments on strategy, organisation, economic development, risk and geopolitics. He is a founding director of the UK National Committee on China, an educational non-profit; a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, the UK’s leading security and defence think tank; and a senior advisor with Boston Consulting Group on China and geopolitics. He is the co-author of Xiconomics: What China’s Dual Circulation Strategy Means for Global Business (Agenda Publishing, 2023).

Andrew was previously the managing partner of Booz & Company’s Greater China consulting operations; the partner leading the Rt Hon Tony Blair’s Asian government advisory practice; and the partner in charge of Boston Consulting Group’s Asian financial institutions practice. He has also held roles with Chatham House, Hong Kong’s Fung Global Institute, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the UK Conservative Party’s Policy Unit. He has a First Class MA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Kennedy Scholar. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese and several European languages.

Q1. Please introduce yourself and tell us about your current interests.

I grew up in the UK in the beautiful county of Cornwall, but always had a very international outlook, including a passion for languages, travel, and different cultures. I was lucky enough to be one of the winners in a student competition and traveled in a group to China for ten days in 1981. It was early days and there really were only bicycles in Beijing, aside from a few black limousines. I remember visits to communes and meeting a ‘model worker’, as well as the Reuters telexes hanging on the walls of the foreigners’ floor in the Beijing Hotel, which was the only way to connect with the world. The news was of a ministerial reshuffle in the Thatcher government, I recall.

I went to live and work in Asia in the late 90s just as I made partner at Boston Consulting Group, and also just in time for the Asian Financial Crisis, or the “IMF Crisis” as it was known locally in Seoul where I was living. My work for the Korea Development Bank ultimately brought me to China and project work advising China Development Bank on risk management and organisation structure. This was an eye-opening experience and the start of great friendships. It also laid the groundwork for my wife and me to move to Beijing and then Shanghai, learn Chinese and get to know China better. I read of many Chinese who learned English by ‘reading the dictionary’ – well that was me, just sitting in a Beijing Starbucks and learning how to say ‘carbon dioxide’ or ‘seagull’ or ‘single plank bridge’ in Chinese. In those days, twenty-odd years ago, I was still able to somehow end up teaching executive education at Tsinghua University on ‘how to do business in China’ after only a year or so in the country.

I continued working in consulting and eventually ended up heading Booz & Company China. Of course, inescapably business is not just business, and even more so in China. My interests expanded to economic development, or rather harkened back to my undergraduate interest in East Asian development. This led to a deeper focus on China’s political economy and politics, and its role in the world. I also spent some time heading up the Asian government advisory activities of Tony Blair Associates. The work we did for the Vietnamese government on economic development was fascinating and there were big similarities with China but also big differences. These days, I’m interested in what all this means, and what governments and companies around the world should do. And how the world itself is changing, as evidenced by China’s role at the Port of Chancay in Peru, for example, or a Miniso store in Cambridge, UK.

I’m co-founder of a non-profit called the UK National Committee on China, with a mission to help the British people make better decisions, in British interests, related to China, with a focus on education and dialogue. And, as a sign of the times, I am a senior associate at RUSI, the UK’s leading security and defence think tank, while not being a security and defence expert. In China and globally I explore the renewed interplay of economics, security and values/ideology across societies. Regarding China, I wrote a book called “Xiconomics”, which explores China’s new context and what that means for business, especially foreign business. Beyond China itself, it’s about China ‘in the world’, and what does a ‘multipolar’ world actually look like? What are the different forms it might take and how can different actors shape it? China certainly has a view but so do others and we need to understand that too, as actions lead to reactions.

Q2. From your recent trips to China can you share any notable observations or discussions that have had an impact on you? What are the concerns people on the ground have both in terms of the domestic economy, as well as China’s international relations?

China is and has always been a particularly tricky jigsaw puzzle to piece together, with missing and duplicate pieces! We each of us visit, form some impressions and seek to generalise or claim insights based on a handful of observations. Our experience and judgment mean we can put these pieces into some sort of meaningful context, but still, it’s only a fraction of the picture: anecdotes, anecdata, and then actual data. But then, as so many argue, can we trust the data from the Chinese government; is it ‘fake’ with suspiciously smooth GDP numbers that always come in on target just like GE’s earnings path under Jack Welch in the 90s? Or is it simply hard to get meaningful, simple quantification of a vast, diverse, and contradictory economy? There’s actually lots of data one can look at to form a view, such as the classic ‘Li Keqiang index’ from 2010 or so, which looked at rail cargo volumes, lending and electricity consumption. There are also updated variants for today’s economy, looking at online sales revenues, for example, and monthly data on Electric Vehicle (EV) sales, high-frequency data on online recruiting job vacancies and so on.

But back to my impressions. Yes, the economy is weak, and people lack both confidence in the future as well as the verve or vigor. They’re preoccupied with job insecurity and the overall outlook, but China’s growth is still above the UK’s. Confidence “in general” is low, but is there such a thing as “in general”? Roaring success in EVs, in expanding and busy high-speed rail, shopping for the latest Huawei phone, in renewables (and coal and nuclear), are specific examples that call into question “in general” assumptions. There are also a host of new corporate heroes heading BYD, CATL, Bytedance – and now DeepSeek. All of this is happening alongside a property crash, a weak construction sector, true excess capacity in non-EV cars, and deflationary pressures. Diversity and dichotomy everywhere as before.

I have friends laid off from USD investment funds that were looking at consumer opportunities, while another friend sees a golden decade ahead in his RMB fund targeting AI opportunities. “Delete-America”, or no US software, is a reality in Chinese finance for those who used to use Microsoft all the time. At the same time, Chinese firms are struggling as cash-strapped local governments won’t pay their bills and instead come asking for previously unmentioned back-taxes that suddenly need to be paid. The end of the ‘sure thing’ of rising property rises and the booming economy was a harsh lesson for many. Some decided to move to Singapore with others committing fully to the domestic opportunity or just muddling through or ‘lying flat’, akin to the West’s own ‘quiet quitting’. Alongside the apprehension is a genuine pride in what China is doing, as well as alarm about the US, but also concern about China’s own leadership. I heard more than my share of wild conspiracy theories about the world, even among the internationally educated, but then again, conspiracy theories are rife in the West too.

Q3. While not necessarily unique to China, the tensions between security concerns and growth aspirations are very visible in the country. Will these always be at odds with one another, or can a middle ground be found that doesn’t disadvantage business interests? In your opinion, are the leaders aware of the stifling effect of an excessive focus on security, and if so, how can they restore confidence, especially among investors and private industry?

Very true. At the risk of literally ‘taking the Party line’, I’ll quote Xi Jinping here – “Security and development are two wings of the same bird, two wheels of the same cart. Without security there is no development and without development there is no security.” There’s a lot of truth in this for any country and I think China is recently rediscovering the guts of this. The problem with these aphorisms is that, while true, they are very hard to operationalise, to turn into specific guidance or decisions. It takes judgment, and at times people will get it wrong. These past few years many officials have been too afraid to get the judgment wrong – after all, who wants to be accused of endangering security through a poor decision? So, either they’ve simply not made any decisions, or they’ve erred towards security.

There’s still a tension between the securocrats and those more focused on the economy but it’s swinging back towards the old adage that the Party’s legitimacy (and so stability and security) comes from a strong economy – a strong for all, not just for some, so that some version of “Common Prosperity” is still part of the picture. Of course, we also remain in a time when self-reliance is to the fore, with China’s leadership dedicated to reducing chokepoints and dependence on overseas supply, especially from the US. This is all part of the ‘high-quality’ in high-quality economic development, alongside the role for technologies of all kinds and the ‘new-quality productive forces’.

So, there’s an awareness of the issue. There’s a lot of signaling and communication to reassure business that the leadership gets it. But what matters are actions and that’s tougher as it takes time to demonstrate credibility. There are still competing priorities and competing bureaucratic interests. Confidence is easy to kill and hard to bring back. I talk about it as “How to put Humpty Dumpty back together again” – after he’s fallen off the wall. Not easy.

Q4. Xi Jinping has spoken about the need to “tell China’s story well” but this has proven hard to do in practice, especially when it comes to audiences outside China. What are the challenges from a communications perspective and even if the Party were to embrace a more permissive culture and allow a broader section of society to comment publicly/online, without fear of censure, would this help with China’s global image?

Chinese diplomats and officials are well-versed at telling China’s story well on their own terms and in their own context. But they, and the Party ‘system’ overall, generally stumble or even ‘crash and burn’ when they are operating in other contexts, especially the West. There are some remarkable exceptions, but they’re rare. On the economic side, I think of people like Zhu Min, Jin Liqun, Yao Yang. One thing to think about is, given the big differences in culture, history and life experience, “What are we even trying to do here? What can we reasonably expect?” I remember talking with a senior Chinese state banker about how challenging it was to operate between Hong Kong and Beijing given the different contexts, and that dealing with New York or London was orders of magnitude more difficult.

I think China should be trying for something that’s like “an appreciation, a respect for China in all its complexities and nuances and achievements”. We’ve seen some of this recently as American TikTok “refugees” shift on to RedNote/Xiaohongshu and the delightful and shocked interactions of both Americans and Chinese finding that familiar tropes and stereotypes are not true. Though, of course, these interactions are themselves not fully representative, resting on misinterpretations on each side about what each other’s lives are really like. Still, it is a big positive.

Time and again, Chinese speaking in any official capacity find it hard to criticise aspects of China or acknowledge failures. Paradoxically, ‘crossing the river, feeling for stones’ and experimentation are large parts of Chinese success, and that by its nature means some things didn’t work. Chinese officials just don’t want to talk about it in these terms. I remember one British government official working on development matters telling a Chinese counterpart: “it would be so much more convincing if you could bring some examples of things that didn’t work and why, rather than what we see where everything in China is “always awesome”. Some of this is cultural. Some of this links back to ambiguity about how negative comments made by one Chinese official may be interpreted or misinterpreted or used against them; that somehow, they are not sufficiently proud of China or such like. I find Chinese embassy websites still stuck with clunky, condescending wording in English, and for no good reason that I can see. There are better ways to disagree with BBC reporting on Xinjiang than to instruct people to “correct their false thinking”.

Q5. Foreigners who engage with China tend to do so with a narrow subset of elites, perhaps educated abroad, and don’t have much understanding or exposure to the more than 1 billion Chinese who live very different lives. In your conversations with Chinese officials and policy analysts, how do they think about the CCP’s need to govern for both the elites (who may prioritize stock prices, private industry, the value of their investment properties, etc.) as well as the masses? Can the CCP make both groups happy; while still managing to convince foreigners it is serious about reforms and that the country is investable?

My sense is Chinese officials are very much aware of the need to govern for all. Political stability is at the heart of CCP objectives, and the official line is, correctly, that economic security underpins this. It is all too easy to forget the massive diversity in living conditions, education and life experiences across China. The rotation of Chinese leadership across provinces brings a very pragmatic exposure to these matters. “Service” or one might say, more broadly, “instrumentalism” is at the heart of how officials view different aspects of the economy. What I mean here by “instrumentalism” is that different elements such as markets or foreign companies are used where they are judged to be the most effective way to advance national objectives – they are not viewed as good or bad in themselves.

Market forces are a mechanism to generate prosperity, not a good in themselves, and so too, are foreign companies. Think, for example, of the favourable terms given recently to Tesla in China to help stimulate the Chinese EV sector. Mao said, back in the early 1960s, “Make the Foreign Serve China”, but finance too needs to “serve the real economy”, and Xi has said that “houses are for living in” – in other words, not for speculation. Weakened business confidence in the past few years has come in part from a perceived shift to a more ideological stance and that state-ownership is inherently preferable to private ownership. Again, the leadership is now sending a lot of signals that both state and private are needed. But restoring that confidence takes time.

Considering all this, the question then for China is “Do we still want and need foreign companies?” The answer is yes but they need to have their own value proposition to China – areas where they bring something different, and where they link China better to the world, or simply do a better job of meeting people’s needs than do Chinese companies. This is all in situations where foreign ownership and the activities of those governments where the foreign companies are headquartered don’t pose any security risks. For a few years around Covid, this message became a bit mixed for different reasons. There was the growing US-China strategic competition, especially in technology, and the way China’s regulators cracked down on and regulated the internet platform companies, in particular Alibaba, and their founder-entrepreneurs. The travel restrictions due to Covid also didn’t help. This was at a time when the Chinese leadership was figuring out for itself the right policy mix and went together with poor communication of what it was doing or trying to do.

Top leaders are now busy signaling that they are serious about reform and that foreign companies are still welcome. But words are not really enough. Once again, it’s actions that matter. There is some progress, like the opening up of hospital ownership and looser regulatory requirements for foreign companies in the financial sector. The re-opening of travel is also a net positive. Foreign executives can once again put the time in on the ground and see the reality, positives and negatives, for themselves. That’s made a huge difference, but actions take time to have an impact, and there’s unlikely to be a quick ‘vibe shift’. We’re a long way from any ‘irrational exuberance’ about China, but past too are the days of ‘irrational depression’.

Q6. What is the state of China-related education in the UK? Beyond just language training, is there a growing group of China experts with deep knowledge of the country who can offer quality advice and insight to business leaders and policy makers? If not, how can the UK credibly engage with China over the long-haul if the loudest voices on China continue to be self-proclaimed “experts” mouthing familiar hawkish narratives and producing substandard research and analysis?

UK has its fair share of China experts though we always need more. I think the issue is a bit different to the way that you are describing it. I don’t think there’s much substandard research and analysis. There’s some good research and then there are others making arguments not much supported by the facts or analysis at all. We need more research and insight of the quality that we have. There’s some momentum behind an initiative to improve the research and knowledge base (“China Capabilities” is the phrase of the day) which has the support of those on all sides of the debate on what to “do” about China – how to engage or not. The challenge is always funding. There’s also a challenge on career paths for young China talent. I know many in their 20s who want to do more on China, already know quite a bit, but can’t find the right place to put that talent and passion to good use in the UK.

We are though in a better place than five years ago, and there have been some good initiatives. I’d call out Sam Hogg for his valiant efforts with the BeijingtoBritain newsletter and now working with Oxford China Policy Lab. The Lau China Institute at Kings College London has built a great team and there’s the new China Strategic Risks Institute, though my own preference is to put the opportunities alongside the risks. And I can maybe mention too the non-profit I co-founded – UK National Committee on China – which acts as platform for a wide range of perspectives on China.  We don’t take institutional positions or lobby, and we work to facilitate dialogues with China. But the UK still has nothing to match Germany’s MERICS or some of the US think tank efforts.

Beyond research, much of the issue is around media narratives and what gets attention as well as the focus and interests of some backbench MPs, those not sitting in government. There would be a better debate if those who knew more about China were out in the media more. One of the great initiatives of the National Council on US-China Relations, a sort of sister (elder sister!) organisation to the UK National Committee, is their Public Intellectuals Program. It helps those who know about China speak and write more prominently and effectively about their views. The UK would benefit from something like that.

Q7. It is early days but how do you see the current Labour Government’s China policies evolving and what might be different from those of its predecessors? While much of the important activities happen at the national level, are there any noteworthy China initiatives happening at the subnational level?

There’s been a clear shift on China under the Starmer government. While they have their own three-pronged mantra of Compete, Cooperate, Challenge, the real change is re-engagement – actually, just showing up and having meetings with Chinese senior leadership. Before Starmer met Xi at the G20 meeting in Brazil in December, Theresa May had been the last British Prime Minister to meet Xi in person and that was in 2018! We’ve had Johnson, Truss and Sunak in between, not to mention Covid and so much else. Quite incredible. Simply having senior leadership meetings was pretty much a no-brainer.

We’ve also seen a clear tilt back to a focus on trade and investment relations, and as ever, talking about climate as an area of cooperation. The January visit of Chancellor Rachel Reeves restarted the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue. By contrast, the visit to Hong Kong of Catherine West, Minister for the Indo-Pacific, was much more low-key. There’s much less in the headlines these days on security or on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other areas of concern for the UK. The UK government has also intervened in the long-running stand-off about the new Chinese Embassy in London. Local residents don’t want it, and security issues have been raised, but the signs are that it will move forward. The headline numbers out of the Reeves visit were actually paltry – £600M of ‘value to the UK economy’ over five years, mostly trade-related – but it’s a start.

It’s too early really to see much renewed activity at the local level in the UK. It’s something I’ve been looking into a lot in the past few months. There’s usually a lag between what’s happening nationally and how it’s picked up locally. China is just one of many topics for city and county governments, and it just doesn’t get the attention it used to on the economic front. Change will take time to filter through. Locally, China remains much more associated with security and human rights challenges, so a lot of sentiment is “why bother?”. This will shift though, presuming the UK government holds course.

Many at the local level across the UK are working on the energy transition, EVs and so on, but are still waiting for national direction on what role China will be allowed to play there. China’s Envision operates the UK’s only EV battery plant. Reeves to date has talked of the UK’s open trading history and is not looking to put tariffs on Chinese EVs, unlike the US and EU. It’s promising but not yet definite.

Q8. There has been plenty of commentary on Labour’s ongoing “China Audit”. Please explain what this audit is all about and share your expectations for this document. What impact do you see it having on the UK’s China policies?

The China Audit is a good thing. There’s so much debate on China, so many different aspects, and also a lot of frustration across industry, academia and local government. Everyone wants clearer guidance on what the UK China strategy means for them. What do the magic words of Compete Cooperate Challenge (or Protect Align Engage, as it was under the Conservatives) really mean for each specific opportunity, research project or investment plan?

What’s not so clear is what this audit, this ‘good thing’ is. Most of its key dimensions are pretty unclear. It’s certainly up and running and there’s a team – with an email address! – that’s seeking input from a wide range of experts and stakeholders outside government, so they’re not short of input. It’s not just a small group talking to one another. It’s a cross-government look at all matters related to China and at whether the capabilities and structures are in place to make and implement better decisions. There are, however, conflicting reports about its focus. Will it focus mainly on ensuring processes, capabilities, structures? Or will it also lay policy stances on key questions and deal with both the ‘content’ as well as ‘process’? This is the clear guidance that people are looking for. The timing is also not clear. Maybe it was due to be already published? Maybe it will come later in the Spring? And, finally, what is ‘it’? What will actually be published and what will remain an internal, confidential document to guide decision-making? It’s not at all clear that the Audit will change overall policies per se. That shift seems underway already, but it may be more specific on how to turn intentions into action.

Which brings us back to the tension between frequent calls for a public, non-confidential ‘China strategy’ for the UK and the fact that most governments or companies don’t publish all the key elements of their ‘strategy’. What is definitely needed though is a) a clear direction from government on China (which we are starting to see) and b) very specific guidance on knotty topics: Is China a partner or competitor in EV? Which research topics can universities work with Chinese counterparts on and which pose national security risks and so on? Ultimately, we will need to wait a little longer but hopefully, not too long.

Q9. Can the UK embrace a China policy that is materially different from the United States? Is there any path for the UK to serve as a balancing force between the US and China or must it continue to prioritize whatever comes out of Washington? Following Brexit, does the UK have any real leverage that will allow it to assert a high degree of foreign policy or economic/trade independence?

Given the importance of the US relationship to the UK and the US’s overall economic and security strength, the US-UK-China triangle is tricky to navigate. The way I think about it, the answer to whether there’s room for a materially different China policy is a sort of meta-answer. Yes, there’s room, to the extent ultimately that the US allows there to be! Or where the UK has created new alternative options for itself, essentially through alignment with a more ‘strategically autonomous’ Europe. Of course, that requires action by both Europe (EU?) to turn its ambitions for strategic autonomy into reality and by the UK to figure out how it engages or re-engages with the EU post-Brexit. That’s also an ambition for the Labour government, but not one where much progress has been made so far.

So, it’s back to the US. There are many ways the UK can follow a path with China that is at least somewhat different, and there’s a long history there. The UK recognised the PRC in 1950, and the first British ambassador to the PRC was appointed in 1972, ahead of the US in 1979. And in 2015 the UK was a founder member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, much against the wishes of the US. In practical terms, we’re talking about the UK being more conciliatory and engaged with China in the face of a more hawkish US stance. That’s what may be ahead. Anyway, a hawkish British stance on China in the context of a warm US-China relationship would feel a little ridiculous.

Whether divergence from the US is viable or not rests then on how hawkish the Trump administration is and on how much it cares (for good or for bad reasons) about what the UK does. On Trump’s own China policy, it’s still early days. Those in key positions have declared strong, essentially hawkish, policy positions on China, going further than the Biden administration. Trump himself has been more emollient in messaging, holding out prospects of some form of ‘deal’. He is still committed to tariffs – at least as a negotiating position and maybe too as a new revenue source. But he’s not singled China out, seemingly keener on tariffs for Taiwan, Canada and the EU, often with bigger increases than those proposed for China. The same uncertainty holds about how much he cares about the China policy of others. Will Trump’s message be ‘get in line’ (with a tough US China policy) in return for transatlantic security and trade? Or will there be other priorities and matters that catch his eye? On Huawei 5G, for example, the US was very clear with the UK that there was no real room for a separate policy. It’s not at all clear that the same will hold true for, say, EVs, where the US is highlighting security threats and banning Chinese software.

Beyond having room to maneuver, it’s hard though to see the UK as any form of ‘balancing force’ – we’re just not big enough. We do though have distinctive strengths in security terms, in financial markets, education and some technologies and life sciences that appeal to China, and to the US and others. So, some smart combination and deployment of these does offer the prospect of a way through these shifting pushes and pulls on the UK’s alignment between the US and China.  Will take some finesse and backbone, though.

Q10. Following the defeat of the Conservatives in Australia in 2022, Labor has taken a more pragmatic approach to China. While there remain clear points of contention, civility has at least been restored, and business and trade interests appear less likely to fall victim to politics and rhetoric. Is this a possible model for Labour in the UK?

I think Australia is very much a place to look and indeed the UK seems to be on a similar path. This means “engagement”, which in the simple sense is about meetings and contact. There is also a focus on economic relations, the finance sector, global public goods, and matters like AI governance, public health as well as the usual climate focus. While still raising human rights, the UK can maintain an interest in Hong Kong and ensure basic security concerns at home are addressed as part of protecting the UK from hostile actions by any third party, just as China does.

When Australia-China relations were particularly heated, I recall former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saying Australia should learn from Japan, whose relations with China were even more complicated than Australia’s, yet were somehow on a more even keel: “Speak less, act more,” said Rudd or words to that effect. Well, that applies to the UK too, and again, the UK’s relations with China are overall less vexed, less economically interdependent than those of Australia with China. Certainly, there’s less rhetoric and more calm engagement around these days in the UK-China relationship.

Q11. While China is clearly an important relationship for the UK, what are your thoughts on relations with India? This is another high-growth economy with its own security and economic concerns about China. Is increased engagement with India on the cards and can the countries move past their colonial history to craft a meaningful economic and geopolitical relationship? More generally, how should the UK view and engage with the larger BRICS group of nations?

India is clearly very important and will become only more so, with its massive, young population and its own economic momentum. The economy is still less than a quarter of China’s in size but with strong leadership, it’s already punching above its weight in geopolitical terms. It has a clear view of its own interests. India is making clear that it’s not China alone that ‘leads’ the Global South. Certainly, there’s good scope for engagement and cooperation if we in Britain remain level-headed and mature on all this rather than chasing illusions based on the past. The Indian diaspora in the UK can play a positive role too. However, trade talks often get stuck on India’s demand for easier immigration access to the UK at a time when immigration is a political hot potato in the UK.

And we’re not alone in wanting to engage more with India. As with China before, the attention of the world is on India’s re-emergence. Of note, the US and India have become much closer in economic and technological cooperation. The UK as always needs to play to its strengths but there’s not a demonstrably easy path to create a new form of ‘special relationship’. In business terms, India like China is highly competitive, has its own increasingly capable competitors, is proud of what it has achieved and ambitious to do more itself quickly. And there’s still a protectionist tilt – India decided not to join either of the two big Asian trade agreements (RCEP and CPTPP), preferring to focus on bilateral agreements.

All this applies more broadly. The UK should engage, and is engaging, with the BRICS or BRICS+ nations, as we saw with Minister Catherine West in Indonesia in January. But it should continue to do this primarily on a bilateral basis. Each BRICS country is quite different in what it offers and needs, and of course, Russia is under Western sanctions currently. BRICS itself is a fascinating grouping of countries, who are figuring out how they can best work together when the differences are so great and individual interests so strong but who also see common interests in doing ‘something’.

There’s a bit of a push and pull about whether it’s ‘anti-West’ or ‘non-West’, but overall, I think the ‘non-West’ side is winning out. Or that BRICS members will agree to disagree on even that framing. In a multipolar world, it is multi-alignment that makes sense for most countries, taking advantage of what’s on offer around the world from all-comers and using that to best advance national interests. It really is the application of Mao’s “Make the Foreign Serve China” to everyone: “Make the Foreign Serve Indonesia”; “Make the Foreign Serve Brazil” and so on. It also aligns with the Trump State Department’s pledge that all foreign policy choices must be justified by whether they make America safer, stronger or more prosperous.

To get back to BRICS, it’s best to neither under- nor over-estimate what BRICS can become, as it is all still a work in progress. Still, BRICS is one good way to explore and create what the next generation of multilateral engagement looks like. In its own way, that’s what the UK’s membership of the Asia-Pacific CPTPP trade agreement offers too.

Q12. The UK and Hong Kong have a long and complicated history and there are tensions and unresolved issues, not least of which are tied to the many BN(O) holders who left HK for the UK. Nevertheless, there is a natural fit between the global financial centers of London and Hong Kong. How does this relationship get back on track and do you see any green shoots under the new Labour Government?

The relationship is slowly restarting, as part of the overall re-engagement with China, simply because of the economic and financial complementarities you mention. Hong Kong remains an important trading partner for the UK, alongside the mainland, and meetings away from the headlines allow some progress. The City of London and the major financial institutions are keen to do more.

However, the different positions on the UK and China sides will make it difficult to find common ground outside of economic matters. Every six months, the British Foreign Secretary must deliver to Parliament a report on the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and each one contains many issues. It is important to note that China maintains the Declaration is now just an ‘historic document’. I’ve heard Hong Kong described as ‘the cloud hanging over the UK-China relationship’. The clouds may lighten, and rain may not stop play, but it’s hard to see blue skies ahead.

The continued presence of British judges remains highly controversial in the UK in the wake of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law is being implemented. Jimmy Lai holds a British passport though China does not recognise his dual nationality. The choices of the Hong Kong and Beijing governments too will have an impact and change in Hong Kong is quickly reported in the UK. There are now over 150,000 BN(O) Hong Kongers in the UK who bring their experiences with China to the political debate in the UK. From time to time this leads to arguments and clashes in universities and on the streets. For the most part, it is one more issue that many politicians want to steer clear of.

There’s also in the UK the same problem of a lack of understanding that we have about mainland China. Most people don’t visit and see what is actually happening in Hong Kong, what’s changed and what’s not. Many of the striking changes are again economic rather than political such as the relatively new phenomenon of large numbers of Hong Kongers visiting Shenzhen/China as compared to years past. I’ve met quite a few otherwise well-educated people who think the ‘Great Firewall’ on internet access to some foreign sites applies in Hong Kong just as in the mainland. And some are surprised Hong Kong still has its own currency pegged to the US dollar.

Q13. Please share any favorite books, blogs, podcasts or other resources that readers could use to improve their understanding of UK/China relations, security issues, economic policy, or any other related topics.  

There’s so much stuff around these days on all these topics that it is indeed hard to know where to look. For all its changes, I still find X (or Twitter as I keep calling it) an invaluable source of nuanced insights on China: @GlennLuk and his deep dives on China’s economy stands out, as does @gonglei89 for thoughtful dissections of China’s tech and economic development and differences with the US. David Fishman @pretentiouswhat is interesting for his on-the-ground China tales and takes on China energy. In podcasts, the Financial Times Tech Tonic podcast brings to life what is happening in China tech, which many are just now waking up to. Chinese Whispers by Cindy Yu of The Spectator magazine is also very good. In terms of books, The Great Reversal, by the ever-prolific Kerry Brown, stands out to me as a readable history of centuries of UK-China relations and an exploration of how the roles have reversed as China has grown. Daniel Bell’s The Dean of Shandong, is a fun read on what life is like as a foreign Dean in a Chinese university.

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