Glyn Ford on China
The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power by Kerry Brown – published by Yale University Press
Kerry Brown is one of Britain’s most skilled and knowledgeable Chinese hands, which explains why he is no longer a UK diplomat serving in China, but rather in the greener pastures of academia heading the Lau China Institute at King’s College London. After all, he can’t possibly have ridden the bucking bronco of what purported to be a coherent China policy over the last long quarter century since the retrocession of Hong Kong in 1997. The short China deck of partner, competitor and adversary has been regularly shuffled both within and across UK governments. One moment it was President Xi drinking a pub pint in a local with Cameron and next proposals to ban Beijing’s diplomats from the Strangers Bar in the Commons.
Now, after Rachel Reeves’s seriously underwhelming visit, Labour is left looking for the plot. Brown’s book, stretching across four centuries, may help show where it might be found. When Britain first encountered Imperial China, we were the supplicants. The Qing economy was stronger and their technology superior – as so authoritatively mapped in Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China – and their power was enormous in their fastness. When Britain first knocked, China never even answered the door. Their fatal flaw was stasis. The English protestants had discovered progress that triggered the first industrial revolution. While they were defensive and insular, we became offensive and expansionist.
The Anglo-Chinese Wars demonstrated that power grew out of the barrel of a gun. That was the proximate cause of victory, but not before Chinese society was debilitated by dogma and drugs. Missionaries substituted the catechism for Confucius. A shadow black economy emerged as opium, grown under the auspices of the British government in India, destroying civil society. George Orwell’s father was a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the Indian Civil Service. London’s drug wars between 1839-42 and 1856-60 were fought to prevent China from bringing under control the opium epidemic destroying civil society. The fruits of victory included the legalisation of opium and Hong Kong. This is a period of subjugation that China’s rulers have burnt deep into their psyche.
As the West’s other imperial powers caught and, in the case of Germany and the US, eventually passed Britain, there was a scramble for China. It was a pointillist occupation as they cherry-picked China’s cities for occupation with Russia and Japan scavenging over the scraps. Beijing’s central control collapsed into warlordism. The country and civilisation were at the bottom. The only way was up.
Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 saw Asia best Europe for the first time. This and the post-War world saw the easy emergence from the social ruins of modernism and nationalism. Britain was challenged for pride of place both in and over China. Internally, nationalism and communism were competing poles of attraction for China’s confident new men and women. Communism came out top and, after a difficult quarter century, the country was able to stand tall for the first time in almost four centuries. Socialism with Chinese characteristics proved better at driving economic growth than free-market capitalism. Democracy, despite claims to the contrary, was no necessity for economic success. The somersault was complete with China back on top. Its technology is back with the best, and in some sectors ahead of the game. Its military might expand to catch and match the US. The economy takes the lead. As The Great Reversal notes, China is the largest trading partner for 120 countries globally. The UK, in contrast, is on zero.
Kerry Brown wants Britain to get real about China. Adrift from Europe after Brexit and with little opportunity of economically chaining ourselves to a mad dog in the United States, there is no option but to engage with China. The deck needs to be stacked and dealt with the principle of collaborator, contender and challenger. There are undeniably serious human rights problems in China. But we are living a fantasy to believe we have either the strength or moral authority to take the lead. Britain’s perfidious history makes us one of the least appropriate advocates in China’s eyes, while our needy economy makes threats of economic coercion comic. The Germans know not to be in the vanguard when pressing Israel on its human rights violations. For some reason, Britain seems tone-deaf with respect to China. Even the EU in the shadow of Trump is talking of building relationships not just with partners that share values, but those with shared interests. As the US looks to hunker down domestically within the Americas after seizing control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, the future looks bleak for a Britain going it alone. The EU is another option, but that’s another story. But even then, China shouldn’t be neglected.