China-UK ties: Britain told to balance ‘complacency and paranoia’ over Beijing by London think tank

Name: China hits back at UK claims of forced sterilisations and other human rights abuses against Uygurs
Uploaded: 2020-07-31T10:01:27.000Z
Duration: 1 min 54 s
Description: China hits back at UK claims of forced sterilisations and other human rights abuses against Uygurs

In its report on ‘resetting’ UK-China engagement, the British Foreign Policy Group called for more understanding of China’s motivations

Viewing Beijing as committed to a ‘zero-sum game towards world domination’ lacks historical understanding of its concerns, it said

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A British and a Chinese flag pictured at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 2013. Photo: AFP

John Power

Published: 6:01pm, 31 Jul 2020Updated: 7:29pm, 31 Jul 2020

Britain should pursue more “constructive, informed and realistic” engagement with China by expanding its knowledge of the country even as it upholds liberal values at home and overseas, according to a London-based think tank that called for a balance between “complacency and paranoia” in regards to Beijing.

The British government should invest heavily in boosting its “knowledge and experience base”, including language skills, to reap the “mutual benefits” of engagement with China and better understand its “historical, social, economic and geopolitical motivations”, said the report published by the British Foreign Policy Group.

“Only tiny numbers of Britons study the Chinese language, certainly in comparison with the millions learning English in China,” it reads.

“More attention to learning about Chinese language, society, politics, and history – institutionally, commercially, and societally – will be essential to creating a sustainable UK-China relationship.”

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China hits back at UK claims of forced sterilisations and other human rights abuses against Uygurs

The paper – titled “After the Golden Age: Resetting UK-China Engagement” by British Foreign Policy Group director Sophia Gaston and Rana Mitter, director of the University of Oxford’s China Centre – further called on London to better harness British soft power, including its respected educational and media institutions, and pay more attention to the Chinese diaspora, which play “an increasingly important role in perceptions of Britain within China and should be regarded as an extension of the UK’s soft power”.