UK Strategy towards China: Inconsistent Consistency against the Backdrop of Internal Political Debates

This article is focused on the British political narrative as it has been evolving regarding China against the backdrop of widespread internal debates. It is shown how public opinion and the political elite’s assessments of China changed, and what consequences this had for the development of London’s foreign policy. During the period of the coalition government of D. Cameron, interparty consensus on the “China question” contributed to a dynamic political and economic dialogue between the two countries. Following the 2016 EU referendum, issues of human rights in Hong Kong, the desire for strategic independence, along with an increased sense of threat from China came to the fore, fueled by public organizations and the media and government agencies, including intelligence agencies. With the anti-Chinese lobby gaining momentum, there are forces in the political field of the United Kingdom that advocate pragmatic trade and investment cooperation with China. At the same time, their influence on decision makers has been significantly reduced. It is concluded that taking an increasingly harder line on China is down to the flimsy position of the leader of the Conservative Party, depending on various intraparty groupings. The British government’s tightening of policies towards China occurred in parallel with the attempts of the leaders of the Conservative Party and part of the elite to maneuver between Sinophiles and Sinophobes in the political establishment. On the one hand, the announcement of the end of the “golden era” of British–Chinese relations did not cancel the official rhetoric about the openness of the British economy to Chinese business. On the other hand, demands to create an effective mechanism to repel the Chinese threat to democratic and economic processes within the country have intensified. The trip of the UK Foreign Secretary J. Cleverley to Beijing in 2023 showed the dependence of the course towards the PRC on the domestic political agenda and on the external context. At the same time, the inconsistent position of the Cabinet and half-hearted policies will most probably continue after the UK elections in 2024.