House of Commons - Foreign Affairs

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Tenth Report

INTEGRATING CHINA INTO THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

11. The FCO's first objective in relation to China is "to encourage and support China's closer integration into the international system, in all fields, as a friendly and responsible partner in dealing with global and regional issues, and to draw China into international economic, financial and trade structures."[15] The FCO did not in its evidence to us set out an explicit justification for this objective. However, the Foreign Secretary gave us the following justification for attaching importance to the relationship with China: "It is one of the five permanent members [of the UN Security Council] and we frequently meet to discuss international affairs and international crises and, therefore, it is important that we have a working relationship with them. It is also a nuclear power and, therefore, very relevant to the work we have been doing to try to maintain a global non-proliferation regime of weapons of mass destruction. It is the largest single country in the world at the present time. It may in the next quarter century be overtaken by India but for the time being it is the most populous and that in turn gives rise to other issues of immediate direct interest to our foreign policy priorities. For instance, on climate change, within a generation China will be producing as much greenhouse gas as the United States."[16]

12. This justification may be a "well trodden line" as Hugh Davies put it.[17] That does not make it any the less valid. In the past the costs of an isolationist, hostile China have been significant: Chinese support for North Korea during the Korean war; Chinese support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam war; periods of high tension and sporadic military clashes on the Sino-Soviet border before the fall of the Soviet Union; the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Where China has acted positively, the advantages can be great. One area where China may have now adopted a more constructive stance is in relation to North Korea. The Foreign Secretary told us that "It is not easy to be certain what role China has played [in the rapprochement between North and South Korea] but it is interesting that the President of North Korea did visit China the month before the famous summit which achieved the breakthrough and I think the very least one can infer from that is that China did not obstruct that move and may well have been supportive of it."[18] We accept the FCO's view that "encouraging and supporting China's closer integration into the international system, in all fields, as a friendly and responsible partner in dealing with global and regional issues, and to draw China into international economic, financial and trade structures" should be a high priority of United Kingdom policy.

13. This objective is, however, a challenging one. The FCO informed us that "China's interpretation of its interests is still highly coloured by historical experience, notably a strong tendency to recall the history of China's humiliation and exploitation by western powers. Nationalism is a strong force; it is not just one created for its own purposes by the ruling party, but a real phenomenon to which the Party has to respond. China remains fundamentally suspicious of the West, and of the United States in particular."[19] Professor Yahuda also told us of the growing force of nationalism: "I think as the appeal and significance of communism as an ideology has decayed in China—and, indeed, there are quite a number of communist institutions which have decayed—so there has been greater emphasis on what they call patriotism."[20] In part, this recourse to, or exploitation of, nationalism is expressed in the campaign to reunify with Taiwan: we discuss this below.[21]

14. One of the consequences of China's attitudes towards the outside world is that the United Kingdom can only hope to influence events in China at the margins. This influence is potentially greater if the EU's combined weight can be brought to bear. The US is a much more significant market than the EU is for China, but there is a "suspicion in Beijing of Washington's strategic aims."[22] This creates an opportunity for the EU, particularly as the EU is seen by the Chinese as a counterbalance to the US.[23] However, on China as in other areas of the EU's external relations, finding an inter-governmental consensus is difficult—not least because on the key issue of human rights, China works to divide the EU. We discuss the EU's human rights dialogue with China below.[24] According to the Commission, the China-EU dialogue, pursued at heads of government meetings, and Troika Foreign Minister level, "exchange views and raise issues of concern on political issues, human rights; economic and trade issues, including WTO accession; bilateral co-operation; and regional developments."[25] The Third Annual EU-China Summit took place on 23 October. It does not appear to have produced significant concrete results that are publicly available.

15. In part because of the nationalism which dominates China's view of the world, and because of negative views of western countries' past roles in China, as we heard many times at official meetings during our visit, China is committed to "the principles of national sovereignty and non-intervention as set out in the UN Charter."[26] The importance attached to non-intervention encouraged China to oppose NATO's action against Serbia—as we heard during our Kosovo inquiry, "the Chinese for Kosovo is Tibet". This does not mean that China takes a negative attitude across the board: the Foreign Secretary told us that China has "always drawn a clear distinction that where you are present in a peacekeeping role at the invitation of the host government then you are not infringing sovereignty...Where China draws the line is in actions which do not have the support of the host government."[27] He went on to say that, on UN reform, China's "contributions have been measured and constructive and, indeed, the Millennium Summit produced a discussion among the P5 members which showed a very substantial degree of common ground."[28]

16. In part China's preoccupation with non-intervention reflects the fact that, as we were told in Beijing, China is a "defence superpower," but has little capacity to intervene militarily beyond its borders. Its last foreign war, against Vietnam in 1979, was a failure. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has developed since then, but according to the late Gerald Segal, China remains "a second-rate military power."[29] Richard Cobbold and Damon Bristow of RUSI also judge that "China's current conventional military influence and potential are over-stated."[30] Because both China's military strength, and its economic strength,[31] have been over-rated, "Britain needs to consider ways to free itself from the mind set that currently lies at the heart of our relationship with China, which allows China, rather than Britain, apparently to dominate the agenda."[32]

Arms control and non-proliferation

17. As the FCO notes "China is the world's third largest nuclear weapons state and plays a pivotal role in international negotiations on arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament."[33] The importance of the bilateral relationship with China on non-proliferation matters was stressed to us by the Foreign Secretary.[34] China is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and has signed, but not yet ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). We heard in Beijing that the ratification of the CTBT had been disrupted by seemingly unrelated issues, such as the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and the US rejection of the treaty. However, the ratification was expected soon.

18. We also discussed the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). China saw problems with this: for them it was a gentlemen's agreement, between rich-country suppliers. As a developing country, China had difficulties with such an approach. We were told in the strongest terms of Chinese opposition to the proposed US deployment of a National Missile Defence (the Chinese describe this as Theatre Missile Defence). Part of China's opposition has stemmed from a fear that the NMD "shield" might cover Taiwan. The FCO notes that "China/US relations have improved a little following President Clinton's decision not to proceed with the deployment of...NMD."[35] In general, China's attitude towards arms control and proliferation is coloured by arms sales to Taiwan, principally by the US, but also by other western states. We addressed the wider issues of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in our recent Report on this subject.[36]

15 Ev. p. 98. Back

16 Q226. Back

17 Ev. p. 9. Back

18 Q304. Back

19 Ev. p. 99. Back

20 Q20. Back

21 See paras. 175ff. Back

22 Ev. p. 100. Back

23 Q310. Back

24 See paras. 62ff. Back

25 Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of the communication "Building a comprehensive partnership with China," 11 September 2000, COM (2000) 552. Back

26 Ev. p. 99. Back