This evening Alicia Kearns MP spoke to Radio 5 Live about China's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on the same day she joined the Steering Group of a new “China Research Group” to promote debate and fresh thinking about how Britain should respond to the rise of China.
The group’s work will look well beyond the immediate Coronavirus crisis or issues relating to Huawei, and will consider the longer term challenges associated with the rise of China and its industrial and diplomatic policies. These include:
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China's industrial policy. How China’s trade policy, state aid and strategic inward investments are shaping the world, not just the UK.
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Technology futures. How the development, ownership and regulation of platform technologies that underpin future economic growth and innovation are being influenced.
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Chinese foreign policy. The effects of “Belt and Road”, China’s main objectives, and where these align or clash with ours. How to understand Chinese soft power as well as hard power.
The group is being launched by Tom Tugendhat MP, Neil O’Brien MP, Dehenna Davison MP, Anthony Browne MP, Laura Trott MP, Kevin Hollinrake MP, Alicia Kearns MP, Andrew Bowie MP and Damian Green MP.
The CRG aims to promote understanding leading to fresh thinking about issues raised by the rise of China, and provide a trustworthy source of news and informed knowledge on China issues. It aims to promote greater debate about the huge challenges thrown up by the way China competes in the world.
CRG Chair Tom Tugendhat MP said: “The Coronavirus crisis underlines the urgent need for a better understanding of China’s place in the world, and our economic and diplomatic engagement with it. Beijing’s long pattern of information suppression has contributed to the unfolding crisis. The Party are now using the current emergency to build influence around the world. Many aspects of life are now unimaginable without understanding China’s role as both partner and rival, and political and business leaders are urgently thinking about how to deal with Chinese Communist Party-backed national champions and China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative to influence third countries. Along with our allies, we must be part of this global conversation and to begin it, we need to understand what China’s leaders are saying and doing. The CRG will help British politicians be better informed.”
CRG Secretary Neil O’Brien MP said: “Beijing is acting in a highly strategic way to dominate the industries of the future. Our businesses are being asked to compete unfairly with state-backed Chinese firms. The Chinese state is making strategic inward investments in the west while banning them at home. Too often our intellectual property is unfairly extracted, and China is increasingly trying to reshape the rules-based world order in its own image. Even before Coronavirus, it was clear that we need new thinking to cope with a Chinese state which is growing in power, but no longer seems to be on a road to reform.”
The new group will aim to inform the debate on the rise of China by holding public seminars, and inviting leading thinkers and politicians from across the west to Westminster.
