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Should Britain treat China as a hostile state? | LBC
Apr 15, 2025
The Chinese embassy has urged the UK to "act with fairness" after MPs voted to take control of British Steel. The embassy said it was "following closely the developments of British Steel", which is still owned by Chinese company Jingye but is likely to be privatised. Officials said: "We have urged the British side to act in accordance with the principles of fairness, impartiality and non-discrimination and to make sure the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese company be protected. "It is an objective fact that British steel companies have generally encountered difficulties in recent years. "It is hoped that the British government will actively seek negotiation with the relevant Chinese company to find a solution acceptable to all parties." It comes as British Steel staff, civil servants and even different companies are spending Monday attempting to avert the permanent shutdown of Britain's last primary steelmaking plant. Iain Dale is joined by China expert Isabel Hilton and Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China's Luke de Pulford to discuss. Listen to the full show on Global Player: https://app.af.globalplayer.com/Br0x/LBCYouTubeListenLive #iaindale #china #unitedkingdom #britishsteel #chinesecommunistparty #xijinping #keirstarmer #geopolitics #politics #globalnews #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK.
View Video Transcript
0:00
I think we ought to stop using the word Chinese and using the words Chinese Communist Party
0:06
Because I think in some ways you could say that this ought to be seen as a warning to us
0:13
that if we let the Chinese Communist Party into any part of our national infrastructure
0:19
and steel has to be considered in that way, well, we shouldn't be surprised if what happens is not to the advantage of the United Kingdom
0:27
I was always very sceptical when George Osborne and David Cameron were touting the Chinese to invest in our nuclear facilities
0:37
That was seen as the golden age of Chinese relations with Britain
0:42
No longer the case. Significantly over the weekend, the Liberal Democrat MP Vera Hobhouse, she wasn't allowed into Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party government
0:53
quite why they feared her presence there. I do not know, given that she was going to see her new grandchild
1:01
So you look at that, and then you look at something else
1:05
that's happened in recent days and weeks, where the Chinese have been given planning permission
1:11
to build what's called a new super embassy on the side of the old Royal Mint opposite the Tower of London
1:17
on the edge of the City of London. And you think, what on earth are we doing
1:21
allowing a new Chinese embassy on the edge of the City of London
1:26
with all the opportunities that that will provide for spying on the City of London
1:31
You look at the plans for this building and you wonder what some of the basement rooms are going to be used for
1:38
Not my speculation, but speculation that I've read. So I wonder whether you think it is time that we should re-evaluate our relations with China
1:47
0345 6060 973. Well, this morning, Vera Holphaus, the Lib Dem MP, told LBC that she hadn't been expecting the Chinese authorities to take any action against her
1:58
And she now wants the UK government to get her some answers. There were some MPs who were barred from entry to Hong Kong a few years ago
2:06
So it was open, they knew they couldn't enter. But that, you know, that I turn up without any warning and being barred from entering Hong Kong was a real shock
2:16
And there must be some sort of hidden blacklist. And this is, of course, where we want to get to the bottom of it
2:21
We want to know. And this is where David Lammy and the Foreign Office should really ask the ambassador and British authorities to give us an explanation
2:30
And we also heard from the government on this country's relationship with China
2:34
This is the Treasury Minister, James Murray. China's not a hostile state, but China is a country with whom we have a large, important relationship
2:43
We need to be pragmatic about it and understand that we have different ways of interacting with China in different areas of our relationship
2:50
So look at the context. China's the second biggest economy in the world, fourth biggest trading partner for the UK
2:57
There are 450,000 jobs in Britain that depend on exports to China
3:01
So we need to engage with them. But I think if you look at what's happened in recent years under the previous government, it either arguably was too naive and too, you know, it wasn't not eyes open under maybe Cameron and Osborne
3:16
And then more recently, in terms of the latter days of the previous government, there was no engagement at all
3:21
And I think neither of those are quite the right approach. We need to be sort of cool headed and clear eyed and sort of pragmatic about this and realise there are some areas where we're going to cooperate, some where we'll compete
3:32
and others where we'll challenge. Which is like saying, let's have motherhood and apple pie, isn't it
3:40
Seriously is that the best that a government minister can come up with Look obviously we have to be pragmatic in our relationship Nobody is going to suggest that we break off all relationships with China
3:52
whether it's trade relations or whether it's diplomatic relations. No one's remotely suggesting that
3:59
But surely we have to understand that this is a Chinese Communist Party that we're dealing with
4:06
and we need to recognise that. So why on earth are we allowing them to build this embassy on the edge of the City of London
4:12
I do not know. Well, we'll come to your calls in a moment. The question is, should we be re-evaluating our relations with China
4:20
Isabel Hilton joins me, journalist and broadcaster who specialises in Chinese affairs
4:24
also the founder of the China Dialogue Trust. Isabel, very good evening
4:28
I mean, so many things to talk about. I mean, we haven't even mentioned Trump's tariffs and all the rest of it
4:34
which we've sort of kept out of. But do you think it is now time that we should be re-evaluating our relations with China or should we constantly be doing that
4:44
Well, I think it's long past time, to be honest, because, you know, Britain has sort of pinged around like the proverbial supermarket trolley out of control, lurching from golden eras to scary China
4:56
And the problem is you've identified with compete, challenge and cooperate, which is our three word, you know, kind of approach to China is that these can be in contradiction
5:09
And what we've never done is to set out, you know, which is which predominates
5:14
So it doesn't actually tell you as you look at a problem whether you should be competing, challenging or cooperating
5:21
It's not a policy. It's a description of the problem. And we haven't had a policy. So we repeatedly stumble into arrangements with China, which look like very doubtful security propositions. And then a few years later, we kind of have to extricate ourselves, usually at some cost, either diplomatically or financially. And it really, it's too serious to be approached like that
5:50
I don't know how much of the debate you watched on Saturday, if any, but I watched several hours of it
5:57
And I was struck by the language that Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, was using
6:03
where he clearly suspects that there has been foul play in the Chinese ownership of British steel
6:09
What's your view? Well, I'm not inside the conversations, but I can think of several reasons why the Chinese position might have changed
6:21
I mean, if we assume that the Chinese purchase was in good faith, the attraction would be not that China can't make steel
6:29
China makes more steel than the rest of the world combined, but that there were tariffs against Chinese steel being erected
6:36
And if they operated a British plant, that steel would be made in Britain and wouldn't be subject to tariffs
6:44
So, you know, there was a genuine business case for doing it. What also changed in China over the past few years is that China's overproduction of steel, you know, really became a major problem
6:57
And that was because the property sector, which had absorbed huge amounts of Chinese steel, collapsed
7:04
So there been a kind of virtual standstill on building in China and the steel companies have kept on producing steel They all making a loss So you got this kind of massive surplus of steel building up in China because of circumstances in China but that going to affect the calculations that both the government and Jingye made about the viability of the UK operation So I would have to be convinced that it was an evil plot from the beginning But it quite clear that both the Chinese government and Jingye operate primarily
7:40
in their own interests, as you would expect them to. What isn't clear is whether the British
7:45
government had a clear sense of what the Chinese interests were, how they might come into
7:51
into a contradiction with our own interests and what we can do to protect ourselves
7:58
And as I say, that's a repeating problem. We don't seem to be able to think ahead and think
8:03
well, what is the potential security issue here? How do we hedge against it
8:07
And if we can't, if we can't build in safeguards, then we shouldn't do it
8:12
We shouldn't go there. Isabel, thank you. That's Isabel Hilton, who is the founder of the China Dialogue Trust
8:18
Well, Luke DePulford joins me now, founder and executive director of the Interparliamentary Alliance on China
8:24
Luke, very good evening to you. Now, you're accusing or you're saying that British steel should be seen as the canary in the coal mine, I believe
8:32
What do you mean by that? Actually, I think I was generous with that. The canary in the coal mine, it was probably Huawei, so it's long dead
8:39
Where we should be now is saying, look, this has gone way too far
8:43
We've allowed our principal security threat, according to MI5 and 6, to have access to our key national infrastructure
8:51
We've handed them the keys and they've run it into the ground. And that ought to be a signal to us that this absolutely cannot happen again
8:58
I can't make any sense, Ian, of why it was that we thought it was a good idea to do that in the first place
9:05
And there's no political party that comes out of this well. We've all been wrongheaded on China for too long a period of time
9:12
But at least now, after Jingye's behaviour, we ought to be able to say enough
9:17
We can't have stakes from Beijing in Beijing-controlled companies in our critical national infrastructure, in our nuclear, in our rail infrastructure, in our water
9:28
The list goes on and on. And how much are they involved in all of those things
9:33
Well, it varies from industry to industry. what I'd say is that you have to try to frame Chinese investment in our critical national
9:40
infrastructure for what it is. They're not investing in our critical infrastructure out
9:46
of some act of benevolence. They're doing it to further the aims, the geopolitical aims of the
9:51
Chinese Communist Party. We're still labouring under the misapprehension that there's such a
9:56
thing as a private company in China that can say no to the state. Companies that are operating
10:02
abroad of that kind of size, investing in foreign infrastructure, are doing so with the explicit
10:07
permission and at the largest of the Chinese Communist Party. So are you accusing the Chinese
10:13
Communist Party of intentionally trying to undermine British industry? Yeah, well, not just
10:21
me, Xi Jinping himself. Let me quote him to you. This is him in 2020. At the seventh session of
10:28
the Communist Party's Finance and Economy Committee. He says China will, quote, aim to form
10:33
a counterattack and deterrence against other countries by fostering killer technologies, those are his words, and strengthening the global supply chain's dependence on China, close quote
10:45
That was 2020. It's not like this is a surprise, Ian. I mean, this is part of China's grand strategy
10:51
They also have a strategy of civil military fusion, which is about trying to subsume
10:55
private companies into the state. The UK government should know this, and if it doesn't
11:00
it's extremely worrying. But that we are still trying to engage with Beijing as if it's 2003
11:06
and they just joined the World Trade Organization rather than knowing the way that they willing to behave in our country after the last five years of very assertive diplomatic behaviour by China it just beggars belief So what should the British government be doing
11:22
Because at the moment you have Jonathan Reynolds saying some, well, if I interpret them correctly
11:28
some fairly critical things, and then you have planning permission being given to this new massive embassy in Tower Hill
11:35
so on that final point although China has bought the site of Royal Mint Court they have not yet been
11:43
given permission to develop it that's now been called in with the Secretary of State so they
11:47
that decision will be made in due course and I hope that Angela Rayner well I'm sure I read an
11:53
article last week effectively saying that planning permission was expected to be given I thought it
11:58
really had? No, it hasn't already. The planning inspector has just about finished her report
12:05
which will be submitted to the Secretary of State for final decision. I think the reason everybody
12:09
expects it to be agreed is that Xi Jinping in his meeting with Keir Starmer raised it as a
12:15
diplomatic priority, which is a very weird thing to do. I mean, I can't think of any precedent for
12:20
a leader of a country to try to demand a particular planning permission to be given
12:25
to a country, but that's what Xi Jinping did. But no, that hasn't happened yet. That's a little way
12:32
off. But it does look very likely, unfortunately, and you're right to raise those risks. It has also
12:38
been reported exactly in line with what you were warning about, that Royal Mint Court runs directly
12:44
over very sensitive cabling feeding the City of London. So positioning the Chinese embassy right
12:51
over the lines running to the backbone of the UK economy is what we're facing if that planning
12:56
permission is agreed, which would be worse than wrongheaded. And you see, I'm just wondering if
13:01
Britain wanted to build a new embassy on the edge of the main Chinese business district in Beijing
13:07
in similar circumstances, I think we all know what the answer would be
13:11
I agree with you. But this is way worse than that, because China's influence and interference
13:16
tends to increase when the number of Chinese state employees increase. And if this planning permission is granted, there is room for over 230 flats
13:28
which will be built within Royal Mint Courts. So more influence and interference activities associated with it
13:37
This would be the biggest embassy in Europe, a massive status symbol for Beijing
13:41
and a big two fingers up to the UK, which had tried, tried desperately to wake up to some of
13:49
the behaviour of the CCP over the past five years. But unfortunately, now we appear to be doing
13:54
back to the future with the golden era. I think we have to make clear, the attacks that you've made
14:00
the attacks that I've made over the past 20 minutes, are not directed at the Chinese people
14:06
whatsoever. They're directed at the Chinese Communist Party. Completely agree with you and I'm grateful for the opportunity to highlight that. Nobody
14:15
suffers more than the Chinese people at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party
14:20
You only need to speak to Uyghur's Chinese nationals who are in the UK about their treatment
14:25
or Hong Kongers or Tibetans. They will all tell you. Yes, it's absolutely true. Our quarrel is
14:32
not with the Chinese people. It's with Xi Jinping's contemporary Chinese Communist Party, which is a
14:38
malevolent influence, which is an influence that wants to change, reshape the global order in its
14:43
own image to crush United States hegemony. And while it's doing so, make countries dependent upon
14:50
it. So they're completely hamstrung and not able to do anything about it, which is the situation
14:54
we've walked blindly into. Luke, thank you. That's Luke de Bulford, founder and executive director of
14:59
the Interparliamentary Alliance on China
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