{"id":802593,"date":"2026-10-14T18:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T18:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802593\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T18:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T18:50:18","slug":"uks-incoherent-approach-to-china-plagued-by-lack-of-expertise-report-says-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802593\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s \u2018incoherent\u2019 approach to China plagued by lack of expertise, report says | Foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK\u2019s approach to China<\/a> is \u201cbeset by incoherence\u201d and plagued by a lack of senior expertise, according to a report warning of the risks inherent in misjudging the bilateral relationship.<\/p>\n

An audit by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), an international grouping of China-sceptic legislators, says past engagement with Beijing has often exposed the UK to the risks of interference without delivering the opportunities promised.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuccessful UK engagement with China must always be framed by an understanding that the PRC (People\u2019s Republic of China) is an inherently hostile authoritarian state that does not share our values,\u201d an underlined sentence in the audit, published on Wednesday, reads.<\/p>\n

The inherent power imbalance in the relationship with the world\u2019s second largest economy is \u201cfurther compounded by muddled policy and weak engagement\u201d, it says.<\/p>\n

It cites the example of a visiting Chinese delegation who had noted that no one who engaged with Beijing at a senior level in government was a Mandarin speaker, or had significant experience of living in China.<\/p>\n

Although British expertise exists, it is often siloed and \u201cnot translated into capability\u201d, Ipac, which counts members from all the UK\u2019s major parties, says.<\/p>\n

In an endorsement, the former security minister Tom Tugendhat said the report was \u201ca clear-eyed and realistic take on the defining foreign policy problem of this century, filling a gap left by years of policy neglect\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the report accepts that \u201cdisengagement was not an option\u201d, it advocates for clearly defined red lines around issues such as critical infrastructure, frontier technologies and human rights.<\/p>\n

The document offers several recommendations, including better institutional coordination, the strengthened use of national security tools, and diversification of supply chains.<\/p>\n

It identifies emerging technologies such as AI as posing new challenges, in terms of disinformation and surveillance capabilities.<\/p>\n

The climate crisis is identified as a low-risk area for cooperation and alignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate targets as set will not be met without cooperation with China, and accepting medium-term dependence. This means accepting supply chains tainted by forced labour and unfair trade practices,\u201d the audit says.<\/p>\n

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The Guardian has contacted the UK government and the Chinese embassy in London for comment.<\/p>\n

It was \u201cvery welcome\u201d that there was an understanding that better language skills were needed to deal with China, said Kerry Brown, a former diplomat and director of the Lau China Institute at King\u2019s College London.<\/p>\n

However, he said, \u201cthe critical issue now is lived experience\u201d in China.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the members of Ipac \u2026 are really keen on promoting this very security-oriented idea that going to China is in some ways opening you up to exposure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t teach really important things in a classroom; you can only go and learn them through daily life \u2026 and that is the thing that is very difficult to do now, and it\u2019s also the thing that doesn\u2019t seem to be supported.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK\u2019s approach to China is \u201cbeset by incoherence\u201d and plagued by a lack of senior expertise, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-802593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}