-
Pragmatic incrementalism: toward a coherent British foreign policy
Out of favor in Europe, out of favor in the US, and out of favor in China. The UK urgently requires a renewed foreign policy that reinvigorates its geopolitical standing and frankly, gives it some more clout.
In the aftermath of Brexit, Britain’s geopolitical relevance has no doubt floundered. We knew this was true for European leaders. United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken has since told us it is true for US leaders, but what’s often missed is it is also true for Chinese leaders.
I was recently listening to the Beijing to Britain podcast, a resource which delvers deeper into the UK-China bilateral relationship, and heard Trivium co-founder Trey McArver describe an ongoing piece of work from his consultancy tracking Chinese diplomatic expenditure on countries around the world.
Since Brexit, Trivium has found a significant decrease in Chinese diplomatic expenditure spent on Britain. The UK now ranks mid-30s relative to Chinese diplomatic expenditure spent elsewhere in foreign countries. This is more notable when considering comparator nations such Germany and France rank 4th and 6th, respectively. This is symbolic of a broader pecking order when it comes to China’s foreign policy priorities and therefore is a damning indication of the UK’s geopolitical standing today.
Out of favor in Europe, out of favor in the US, and out of favor in China. The UK demands a renewed foreign policy that reinvigorates its geopolitical standing and frankly, gives it some more clout.
Pragmatic incrementalism is one method it might do this. The UK must be pragmatic in acknowledging its new place in the world, and be adept at repositioning itself to balance larger powers such as the US, China, and the EU. It must be incremental in the sense that it must formulate a foreign policy strategy, co-ordinate it across all governmental departments, and be broadly consistent in its implementation across government cycles. This means forging cross-party consensus on issues of foreign policy where possible.
Together, pragmatism and incrementalism offer the potential for a more mature foreign policy that contains both nuance and conviction. There is an opportunity for a country that advocates such a foreign policy, as we explore below.
The Opportunity
The European Union (EU) has recently moved to signal a shift in its China policy, opting for protectionism and seceding to hysteria in labelling China an adversary rather than a competitor, in a move which aligns the bloc more broadly with the US.
The EU seemingly failed to heed French President Emmanuel Macron’s earlier warnings that Europe must avoid blindly following US policy on China. The EU also has a growing political appetite for protectionist policies thanks to rising support for right-wing populist parties across the bloc.
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People, 2023/Getty Images This leaves China with few allies in Europe. The UK therefore has an opportunity. Unlike President Macron, unrestrained by EU bureaucracy, it must for once refrain from being America’s lapdog and instead do what many Brexiteers argued for – chart its own path. Given the aforementioned evidence from Trivium, it is up to the UK to forge its relevance to China as a geopolitical alternative to hawkishness in the EU and US.
Britain can enhance its relevance by seizing the opportunity presented in the current geopolitical climate and offering a moderating voice when it comes to China. It may not have the strength of voice it once had as an EU member but Britain remains a part of the continent and that grants it a degree of relevance that isn’t going away anytime soon.
Research suggests China may be susceptible to such a shift. UK foreign policy as understood by Chinese policymakers is indeed a archetype of self-interested pragmatism therefore Chinese leadership may arguably be expecting a new UK position to emerge soon, and in light of shifting EU attitudes may very well welcome it as a key strategic partner on the continent.
Nevertheless, optimism is not enough for a coherent foreign policy. To further guarantee its relevance, I argue the UK must extend its influence in China’s own back garden – South East Asia – and it should do this through diplomatic avenues such as institutions and culture. We will return to this theme later.
The UK can reinvigorate its geopolitical clout through a renewed foreign policy that is both pragmatic and incremental. Whilst it may not be the sexiest approach, it is the most responsible. Amidst continued international tension as a consequence of the ongoing US-China strategic rivalry, the UK should be pragmatic and accept its new position in the order of the world seeking to balance the great powers rather than yield to one in the form of the US. If the UK can successfully forge such a balance, it can then be more ambitious and lead a diplomatic charge to de-escalate tensions between China and the US. This will restore its clout in geopolitics.
Britain does retain some clout
Having spoke about Britain’s relative fall-off in terms of its geopolitical standing, it is also important to remember that despite its decision to leave the EU, Britain undoubtedly retains some global clout which is useful to build upon.
From a security standpoint, the UK is a member of the G7, the UN Security Council, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). It is the largest contributor in military aid to Ukraine after the U.S. It is again second only to the U.S. in terms of its share of NATO expenditure. This is sometimes referred to as hard power.
Indeed, UK hard power shouldn’t be discarded. It provides significant leverage for it to pursue further strategic autonomy as a responsible international actor. Yet, I would argue most important to UK geopolitical clout, and reputation abroad, is not military but institutional might: systems of governance and perceived trust in them.
In times of uncertainty, Britain’s institutional identity remains. This is commonly referred to as UK soft power and encompasses both formal diplomacy (that done by diplomats) and cultural diplomacy (informal ambassadors, cultural figures and institutions promoting Britain abroad). This is where Britain comes into its own.
Britain’s political and legal systems are respected. Its language widely used. Institutions such as the BBC World Service and the British Council facilitate cultural exchange removed from politics. Its Universities attract students from around the world who leave as proxy ambassadors for the UK.
Indeed, Britain’s’ institutional identity has insulated UK reputation abroad in the aftermath of Brexit and a revolving door of Prime Ministers and Cabinets. Yet, we often undervalue its importance.
Below, I seek to conceptualize the importance of the UKs institutional identity into three key pillars: people, place, and perception.
People, Place, Perception
Britain’s institutional impact abroad is best conceptualized into three pillars: people, place, and perception.
People: Institutions facilitate people-to-people interactions which enhance cultural understanding and trust between different groups. Having such spaces for social interactions, removed from politics brings with it the opportunity to show rather than tell the values of your country and society. In turn, this strengthens bilateral ties and reduces the risk of escalation when diplomatic tension inevitably occurs.
Utilizing existing reputable institutions such as the British Council, BBC World Service, and universities are key arenas for Britain to facilitate such people-to-people exchanges.
Place: Place is the second pillar and intertwines with people, to understand a people you must contextualize them. The place in which people live shapes them – its culture, institutions, beliefs – they are internalized and become a part of their identity. Only once you have understood a people and their place, can you empathize with their words and actions. This can only be done through sustained engagement with places and their people.
Perception: This leads us to perception, the perception of actors is contingent on their efforts to both listen and understand people and place, rather than impose their own values and judgement. This is demonstrable of the interconnectedness of these three pillars, without the arenas for people to meet, there cannot be people-to-people exchanges, without the people’s willingness to engage there is nobody to listen. This results in misunderstanding and pre-conceived bias prevailing. A considered cultural diplomacy anchored by a sensible incremental approach to formal diplomacy is the way to avoid this.
With the importance of institutions now clear, let us delve deeper into how Britain’s existing strengths fit into the big picture of the opportunity it has to reposition its foreign policy when it comes to China and the US/EU.
UK soft power and China
The enduring effect of the UK’s institutional identity and the compounding effect of the English language make the UK an already suitable and trustworthy European partner for China, despite no longer being a member of the EU.
According to a British Council soft power survey of which ranks the overall perceptions of countries around the world, in China, the UK ranked second for its attractiveness, with trust in institutions, people and government all scoring highly.
The English language is spoken by around 350 million Chinese people. 42% of Chinese students who chose to study abroad in 2020 made the UK their destination. The number of Chinese students in the UK has since increased by an additional 34%.
Chinese students now make up 23.2% of all international students in UK higher education. “At 740,000, if the number of Chinese students who have benefited from a UK education were a UK city they would be the third most populous after London and Birmingham.”
This has significant implications for UK influence. China’s businesses and media institutions have large numbers of workers with UK educational experience, acting as proxy ambassadors for the UK with a great affinity for the country. The benefits of this reputation is evident in trade data. The UK remains the major destination for Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe, outweighing its investment in France, Germany, and Italy combined.
When considering such strong HE and trade linkages, a recent Intelligence and Security Committee report on China was unflinching in its criticism of the UK for a lack of joined-up strategy when it came to China. The report argued the UK was over-reliant on China and vulnerable when it comes to China exporting propaganda in support of its political objectives and intellectual property theft in key emerging industries.
Whilst acknowledging and heeding warnings of over-reliance by the UK’s intelligence services, can’t the UK surely safeguard both its HE sector and its key industries and still collaborate with China on areas of mutual benefit? Is this not the very essence of the government’s apparent approach to China: to protect, align, and engage?
If it can, the UK can continue to build upon this strong foundation of soft power in China as it seeks to reinvigorate its foreign policy strategy and geopolitical standing in the world.
In the next section, we will discuss how the UK might build upon such existing strengths.
Britain must invest more to consolidate its existing institutional identity and reputation
The UK must invest significantly more in its key institutions abroad. We know institutions such as the British Council and the BBC World Service advance British interests abroad through cultural exchange and facilitation of trade, but they are hindered by underfunding.
In 2018/19, the UK government’s £184 million grant in aid to the British Council was dwarfed by its counterparts in Germany, who invested £550 million in its principal soft power agencies, and in France, who spent £478 million. The two are part of a longer list which includes Russia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and China who all spend more on soft power as a proportion of GDP than the UK.
This is made possible by a much greater degree of government funding. Currently, the UK government provides just 15% of British Council funding compared to roughly 50% in France, Russia and China, 60% in Germany, and 100% in the US.
Despite its soft power advantage, researchers suggest competitors are catching Britain when it comes to its soft power leadership. By investing more in its key institutions abroad, the government can enhance existing UK strengths in its institutional reputation. The effects of which cannot be overstated. Britain’s institutional reputation facilitates enhanced FDI, enhanced trade linkages, and research co-operation to name but a few. The UK is a services superpower. The service sector is arguably the sector most impacted by Britain perception abroad – its people, its trustworthiness, its reputation.
If the UK wishes to consolidate its existing institutional reputation, investing more time and resources is non-negotiable.
So far, this essay has focused on the opportunity the UK has to play a more strategic balancing act when it comes to the EU, US, and China, and how it might build upon existing strengths more broadly.
In the next section, we focus on the specifics of location. For the UK to have increased geopolitical relevance it demands more leverage. It can achieve this leverage through building more pronounced relationships with key actors in China’s primary sphere of influence – South East Asia. Let’s take a look at the case of a more pronounced UK role in South East Asia.
ASEAN engagement as a more pronounced pillar of UK foreign policy
ASEAN states, like much of the world, are caught between a rock and a hard place in light of US-China Strategic rivalry. As the regional body for dialogue and co-operation in South East Asia, there is a degree of dependency. China is a neighbor and the largest trading partner for most ASEAN states. A positive relationship is inherently in the national interest of ASEAN countries.
On the other hand, there is a desire to sustain U.S. economic, political, and security interests in the region as a means of externally balancing China and avoiding over-reliance, particularly given historical disputes in the region. Growing tension between China and the US presents difficulties in this strategic negotiation for ASEAN. The UK can be a useful counterweight to triangulate this negotiation.
Recently in South East Asia, there has been broadscale growth in support for the UK as a strategic counterweight in the ongoing US-China strategic rivalry.
ASEAN-United Kingdom Senior Officials’ Meeting, 2022/ASEAN.org In the 2023 State of South East Asia Survey, 7% of respondents selected the U.K. when asked to choose a potential third party counterweight to the U.S.-China strategic rivalry, compared to just 2.5% in 2021.
Whilst the government has formulated a five-year plan for Dialogue Partnership status with ASEAN which will allow closer economic and diplomatic ties, and wider calls for a foreign trade agreement (FTA) with ASEAN sounded, these should be symbolic of the beginning of deeper relationships in the region rather than achievements in and of themselves.
Renewed focus on the effect British institutions can have in the region in enhancing British soft power is important to recognize here. I would argue Britain should seek co-operation with ASEAN countries in key areas of governance and regulation, education, culture, trade, and development.
A brief exploration of such avenues is available below:
Policy area Opportunities Governance and regulation This could take the form of forging institutional alignment, technical standards co-ordination in emerging industries, training of regulators and recognition of inspection results. Education Facilitating ease-of-access to UK HE is another route of importance for strengthening UK soft power in the region. Currently, there are over 38,000 Southeast Asian students in the UK and over 88,000 students in British HE institutions based abroad in tertiary education. Meanwhile, the British Council has engaged with over 2 million people across ASEAN, including 263,000 teachers of English. The UK’s International Education Strategy recognizes Indonesia and Vietnam as two of five initial priority countries for HE growth. Malaysia is another area of potential. Rather than suggest any dramatic policy shift here, incrementalism is key. The UK should continue its wider international education strategy but with a renewed directional focus and increased resourcing. Culture Despite announcing £20 million of additional funding for the World Service, the BBC’s foreign language medium which broadcasts around the world in 42 different languages, the UK government must go further in its support for these key institutions, particularly in South East Asia. World Service coverage should be restored in regional languages which have been discontinued such as Malay and Hokkien and initiated in those not yet broadcast like Khmer and Lao.People-to-people exchanges are an important pillar for enhancing the UK reputation abroad and trust in both people and its institutions. This allows trade to flourish. Trade Recently, the U.K. secured membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a mega-free trade agreement that includes four Southeast Asian nations: Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, and Singapore. This will likely lead to expansion of FDI between the UK and ASEAN countries. Intensifying bilateral trade can anchor the broader UK direction of travel with ASEAN, including its five year plan for Dialogue Partnership Status. Outside the remit of EU regulation, there is potential for the UK to plug gaps in commodities markets for ASEAN in which EU environmental regulation has impeded its own relationships with ASEAN members. Development ASEAN countries face key challenges such as climate change, disaster relief, and infrastructure development. The UK can partner with members to help address such challenges. Initiatives such as the US-led Lower Mekong Initiative seek to assist in the development of water management practices, improving health systems, and education in deprived areas. The UK could play a more active role in programs such as this or seek to design its own initiatives with ASEAN partners. The areas highlighted for co-operation aren’t intended to be an exhaustive list of policy formulas to underpin a grand UK-ASEAN foreign policy strategy. Rather, they reflect opportunities. To seize such opportunities, intentionality and strategic direction are pivotal.
The UK must be intentional when it comes to its foreign policy in ASEAN. It must co-ordinate its ASEAN policy objectives with that of its China, EU, and US policy objectives. A coordinated foreign policy is key for the UK to ensure all actors are acting in tandem to achieve UK strategic autonomy.
Therefore, clear outcomes of deepening engagement in Southeast Asia should be UK diplomatic leadership as a trusted partner in the region. The UKs existing strengths in governance, institutions, education – it’s soft power – should be leveraged as it seeks to achieve this objective and anchored by increased funding and resourcing. Its impact should be measured across the three pillars of people, place, and perception.
If the UK can continue to improve trust in its potential role as a mediator in US-China in ASEAN, whilst simultaneously demonstrating its ability to offer a moderating voice within Europe on China it can demonstrate a renewed capacity for diplomatic leadership and geopolitical relevance. Such leadership would come at a time when the international system most requires it. The UK needs a new foreign policy and it should be couched in pragmatic incrementalism.
-
(More) lessons from The Crucible
Last year, I wrote a piece about hysteria in society and what we could learn from Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. Unfortunately, we are here again. As paranoia grips the West, Chinese and Russian spies are said to threaten us all and bloc politics are emerging again. Let us draw on The Crucible for lessons on how to tread the line between naivety and hysteria in society.
London – tall shiny glass buildings dominate the skyline, behind lie dark alleyways, interspersed by grey old cobbled streets and dreary Victorian terraces, grand palaces lavished in royal pomp and elite political institutions seeped in history, the breathy banks of the Thames carry the whispers of secret services from around the world…or so it goes.
It is easy to see the appeal for a spy saga in London. The thirst for such dramas seems to have been stoked once again following the case of the parliamentary researcher accused of being a Chinese government informant and more recently the 5 Bulgarian nationals appearing in court on charges of spying for Russia. This has seen some argue spies are now a threat to us all.
Alibaba’s Liège operations, Europe’s fifth-largest cargo airport, are under investigation from Belgium’s security service. Financial Times, 2023. Similarly, in Europe, Alibaba, the Chinese technological giant, stands accused of espionage in Belgium via its spin-off logistics firm Cainiao. Germany has also had its own fair share of intelligence operations to deal with, with government officials said to have offered Russian embassy staff secrets in return for payment earlier this year.
As I have argued previously, governments spying on one another, like it or not, is nothing new. The decision to publicize the cases and to prosecute the accused is.
Whilst intelligence and security agencies justify such an approach for its success in disrupting foreign operations and information collection which can be later used to give domestic companies trade advantages amongst other things, an unintended effect is to create hysteria amongst wider society.
Hysteria begins at the top and trickles down into society
Hysteria can be understood as an irrational and emotionally charged behavior that is both excessive and out of control. The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and trade war between the United States and China has seen hysteria grip western societies. Anything and everything Russian or Chinese is to be feared. The US say we must de-couple. The UK and EU say we must de-risk.
Such thinking begins at the upper echelons of society in government and institutions but gradually trickles down into the cracks of society sowing seeds of division. We have been here before.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a fictional recasting of the very real tale of the Salem witch trials of the United States between 1692 and 1693. During this time, hundreds were accused of witchcraft leading to hangings and executions.
Miller’s play is set in a theocratic society in which church and state are one meaning what constitutes morality is that which constitutes the law. Criminality is therefore understood as an attempt to rid society of its ills.
The basic premise of the story is a group of girls are witnessed attempting to conjure up a spell. They deny the witnesses claims and lie to protect themselves. Their lies take on a life of their own and culminate in one of the more opportunistic girls seizing the subsequent hysteria to accuse the wife of a man she is in love of with, and rejected by, of witchcraft in order to rid of her. Sensing the shifting public opinion and a dawning realization his wife may be executed, the husband falsely ‘confesses’ to the crime of witchcraft to save his wife but to no avail. Both are hanged, whilst the girls originally accused flee.
A scene from the Bristol Old Vic Company production of Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’ in 1954. Getty Images, 2023. he story is a lesson in the danger of hysteria and how information can take on a life of its own once in the public domain. Criminality is weaponized and rather than ridding society of its ills, is manipulated by different actors with differing intentions seeking to further their own agenda. This blurs the lines between fact and fiction, and what is just and unjust. Unintended consequences emerge and innocent people are punished.
“The paranoid, real or pretended, always secretes its pearl around a grain of fact.”
Arthur Miller in Why I Wrote the Crucible for the New Yorker magazine, 1996.Drawing parallels between the Crucible and society today
We are seeing parallels unfold in front of our very eyes.
Western citizens are allegedly being apprehended at random in China and Russia on dubious espionage cases in retaliation to the prosecution of Chinese and Russian spies in the likes of the UK, Belgium, and Germany.
In the United States, a deteriorating bilateral relationship with China has tracked a deteriorating lived experience for Chinese Americans. Nearly three out of four Chinese Americans say they have experienced racial discrimination in the past 12 months.
In the UK, Russian people are conflated with their government and called to be removed from the country by officials as high ranking as Minister for Security.
Words matter, we should use them carefully. Countries spy. It can’t be the case that some spying is okay and rational because of some sense of moral superiority. While other spying is wrong because it is a result of innate evil.
Security agencies and media institutions need to tread a careful line when it comes to national security – balancing naivety and hysteria is no small order – but is a task society desperately calls for.
-
Harmony under Heaven and Oneness: The Plight of the Uyghurs
The plight of the Uyghurs is a story that begins in the North-Western part of China in Xinjiang province, formally recognized as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). What distinguishes Xinjiang from other regions in China is its wealth of ethnic diversity. The region hosts over 12 non-Han Chinese ethnic groups. The Uyghurs are the best-known example of these non-Han groups. They are a majority Muslim group with nomadic roots and links to similar ethnic groups in countries such as Kazakhstan and Turkey, amongst others.
Many argue that being Muslim immediately puts the Uyghurs at odds with the Chinese state, given the official national ideology of Atheism, I would contest this claim. China has throughout the majority of its history had to govern over diverse groups therefore encounters with separatism are neither new nor surprising. Whilst its very own history is steeped in Buddhist influences amongst Taoism and many others. Indeed, many high ranking officials in China have throughout history been advocates for equal treatment of minorities. Confucius himself is famously attributed the quote ‘to not do to those as you would not wish done to you’. The very Constitution of the PRC states that all ethnic groups are equal and the state is to protect the lawful rights and interests of ethnic groups. Discrimination against any ethnic group is therefore forbidden.
As recently as the 1950s, the CCP undertook perhaps the largest social survey in human history. It sent thousands of researchers into minority communities to research and document their unique culture and traditions whilst linguists created writing systems for minorities who did not already have them. This led to the recognition of up to 55 ethnic minority groups inside China in addition to its Han Chinese majority. Such diversity is celebrated for the rich variety of culture it contributes to Chinese society.
While such ethnic diversity provides an additional richness to a society and to a culture, it also brings with it the challenge of balancing the values of communities with different belief systems with the broader society and political economy. Understanding this challenge in its unique Chinese political-philosophical context requires an understanding of Confucianism – arguably the fundamental ideological underpinning of Chinese society amongst its many other influences.
Confucianism is best understood as a fundamental belief in order or harmony. Heaven represents the Bureaucracy, whom in turn oversee society below. This natural order corresponds with a view of family as the basis of moral and ethical righteousness. Family captures this basis as a symbol of human love in caring for others. This mutual concern is viewed as a a natural obligation and is paternalistic. In Confucianism this concept is known as Ren.
Ren is a useful adjective through which to describe the Chinese socio-economic system. It is capitalist in economic terms but socialist in societal terms. One cannot govern if one does not follow the family model of obligatory mutual care. Again, this is paternalistic. Many Chinese societal norms conform to this understanding of a family unit such as leading by example, submission to parental authority, and collectivism. China is an ancient society and has long since governed in adherence to such norms. In essence, coercion aimed at improving the wellbeing of the coerced. In this sense, what we have described is a form of paternalism unique to China. Chinese paternalism – that is to say paternalism embedded in historical conservatism and Confucian ideals.
Nevertheless, balancing such paternalism when responding to dissent has pervaded the Chinese leadership in recent years, resulting in what critics describe as a brutal clampdown on human rights for Uyghur ethnic groups in the region. Last year, the UN released its long awaited report into allegations of abuse which provided a damning assessment:
“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups … may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”.
UN High Commissioner, 2022The West screams genocide whilst China scoffs at “the lie of the century”. This article seeks to examine the case of the Chinese state vs the Uyghurs and other ethnic groups of Xinjiang and situate the issue on a spectrum which poses harmony under heaven against homogeneity and oneness in Confucian thought. This is the case of the Uyghurs.
Contextualizing China’s War on Terror
Anti-Han and separatist sentiment has long been present in Xinjiang but violence is a relatively recent phenomenon. Sporadic episodes of violence have grown in both scale and frequency since the early 2000s.
In 2009 around 200 people died as a result of clashes in Xinjiang. The Chinese state blamed Uyghurs who wanted their own state, whilst Uyghurs argued that escalation was the fault of the state and particularly police forces for excessive use of force. Almost 4 years to the day, in 2013 35 people were killed in two further outbursts of violence between Uyghurs and security forces in Xinjiang.
Most recent acts of violence have been a handful of isolated ‘lone-wolf’ attacks. On March 1st 2014 a group of eight knife-wielding terrorists attacked passengers in the Kunming Railway Station in Kunming, Yunnan, China. The attackers are said to have pulled out long-bladed knives and stabbed and slashed passengers at random. This devastating attack left 31 civilians dead and injured more than 140 people.
With heaven no longer harmonious, this led the Chinese State to initiate its own ‘war on terror’ only this time, unlike what we have witnessed in the West, the war was fought at home not overseas with Xinjiang province the frontline.
The Surveillance State
In recent years the Chinese state has sought to put a halt to the rise in separatist sentiment in Xinjiang through the implementation of a mass surveillance network in the region. This includes police, checkpoints, and ‘riot-proof’ cameras said to scan everything from number plates to individual faces.
Laws such as The Counterterrorism Law (“CTL”) and Xinjiang Implementing Measures (“XIM”) have granted authorities the power to use technology, alongside other measures, to prevent the spread of terrorism and “extremism” and to ensure that “public areas of the city as needed” are equipped with “public security video image information systems”. This extends to compelling service providers to co-operate with authorities by putting in place information content monitoring systems and providing public security officials with decryption and other technical support.
Evidence cited in the UN investigation into these claims becomes vague at this point. Its primary source is declared as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, whereby documents that ‘appear to be of an official nature’ are released in bulletin form onto a state-sponsored police platform that serves to store data on individuals that can be flagged for potential detention. This is said to work in corroboration with a secondary police platform used to aggregate diverse data about people it deems potentially threatening based on specific kind of behaviors and indicators.
Whilst such intensive surveillance has been criticized in the West as intrusive and an infringement on personal privacy, this is for the most part a cultural difference. Instead, the majority of criticism has focused less on the surveillance of individuals and more so on the proceeding ‘rehabilitation’ of individuals the Chinese state has deemed to represent a national security threat on assessment of the evidence collated.
Rehabilitation
Western media coverage of China’s treatment of its Uyghur and non-Han population in Xinjiang often displays satellite images, such as the ones below, of facilities said to be detainment centers and their growth in recent years to highlight Chinese state oppression of the Uyghurs and the intensification of its detainment and imprisoning of those deemed to represent a threat to national security.
BBC, 2022
These facilities, critics argue, violate international law by denying detainees basic human rights such as the right to liberty and the right to security. Detainees are said to be coerced into a ‘political re-education’ consisting of propaganda, patriotic songs and mandarin language learning.
A series of documents released by the BBC in May of 2022 titled The Xinjiang Files, claim to bare evidence of institutional instructions for security officers working in detainment centers to use violence against unwilling detainees while any attempt at escape culminates in a shoot-to-kill order.
Whilst China openly admits to the existence of a network of what it describes as rehabilitation centers. Its own description is very different to that of the West. China argues that its network of centers have been designed to rehabilitate individuals who have been influenced by extremism. The centers do indeed provide political education and mandarin classes to which patriotic songs are a part. Moreover, the centers are said to provide vocational training to equip individuals with skills to bolster employment opportunities. This combination enables individuals to start a new life on ‘graduation’ from the centers and to meaningfully participate in Chinese society which in turn reduces the risk of radicalism.
Confusingly Confucian?
Oncemore, I would like to stress that the purpose of this blog is not to provide a value judgement on Chinese current affairs and the actions of the CCP but rather to attempt to situate the actions of the state within what I believe to be the Chinese perspective to allow readers to compare this with our own Western perspective and decide what they believe to be either true or righteous.
The overarching argument of this piece is this, in its treatment of the Uyghurs there is a question to be answered of whether China is simply doing what China has always done, that is, seeking to resolve its problems through institutionalism as an instrument of a State with paternalistic tendencies.
In the Chinese perspective, if the CCP wishes to restore order all under heaven then it must draw on its bureaucracy as a means to coercive paternalism. Confucianism is an all-inclusive approach to society in which there is no concept of the individual but instead every ‘thing’ is relational meaning all peoples, and groups are a part of a contributing ‘whole’ that is society. Lu Buwei, a Prime Minister of the Qin period, summarized this line of thinking best: ‘no state can be safe if the world is in disorder; no family can survive if the state is thrown into turmoil; one has no dwelling place when one’s family is ruined’.
Contrary to popular belief and rhetoric, this notion of family extends to minority populations whom lie within China’s borders. Confucian ideals commit China to the notion that diverse minorities should merge into a unified harmony and co-exist peacefully in mutual respect and interdependence rather than assimilation into a singular homogenous group as so often incorrectly reported. As a means to this end, China’s ethnic minority policy has typically used the strategy of depoliticization of ethnicity. It does this through a categorization of ethnicity as primarily a cultural difference as opposed to a political difference.
In itself, this is a political decision by the CCP. One which they believe fits the unique needs of China. It is not an abnormal approach. Throughout the history of social development, governments around the world have typically adopted one of two primary approaches to ethnicity – politicization or culturalization. Politicization is primarily concerned with representation and power whilst culturalization treats differences in ethnicity as cultural differences, in other words – behavioral differences to be resolved through the development of mutual respect. This should sound familiar. The theory hypothesizes that through this method of culturalization, mutual respect leads to order or in Chinese terms ‘harmony’ thus in keeping with Confucian ideology.
Furthermore, in a Communist political system, the politicization of ethnicity is undesirable given the theoretical absence of individualism. The party should come before any one individual, and thus the characteristics, social background and ethnicity of any individual in a position of power is unimportant and counter-intuitive to collectivism, theoretically speaking. This is a second reason which supports the CCP decision to pursue a policy of culturalization of ethnicity. In terms of practicality, this approach has the benefit of subduing any nationalist/separatist cause which is of course important given its historical relationship with Xinjiang and many of its other border regions.
This understanding was something the former Soviet Union (USSR) failed to implement. Given its expansion and occupation of new territories, the USSR faced continuous dilemmas of confrontation with ethnicities with distinctly different cultural practices to themselves. To resolve these issues, the USSR resorted to granting political power in the form of autonomous regions. This proved to be a grave error with institutional power taking on its own process of development and unstoppable momentum eventually culminating in nationhood for many of the former soviet-bloc autonomous regions.
With the collapse of the USSR and the transferal of ownership of Xinjiang and many other border regions to China in 1949, China inherited the mistakes of the USSR. Power is a difficult thing to take away once granted and has arguably been the subject of much intellectual debate within the Chinese political sphere with leaders taking variegated approaches to ethnic political power. From Mao Zedong’s experiments with both federalism and regional autonomy as a political principle as opposed to a tangible power to Deng Xiaoping’s more open and economic approach to addressing inequality in these regions through ‘favorable’ economic policy. All the while, the Western concept of human rights adds fuel to the fire in both demanding and supporting the cause for political rights for ethnic minorities.
It can thus be argued that China is still trying to perform a balancing act which draws on its own history of Confucianism and the unique history of Xinjiang. It is attempting to appease politicization pressures whilst undergoing a process of culturalization. This has been unsuccessful as of yet. Henceforth, in response to the threat of disorder and chaos which could perceivably lead to further growth of separatist sentiment, the CCP has acted to enforce culturalization in line with its paternalistic tendencies and bureaucracy.
Habermas theorizes that to create national cultural unity, members of all ethnic groups should respect the common social norms whilst respecting cultural traditions. This begs the question as to what governments are to do when this ‘respect’ is not adhered to, as is perceived by the CCP in regards to separatist and terrorist movements in Xinjiang. This dilemma is not unique to China. It is one we have seen throughout recent decades in Europe with independence movements in Spain such as the Basque and Catalonian regions, in the UK with Scotland the most notable example. Whilst in India, we have witnessed the Indian governments difficulty in forging a unified national identity post-colonization. In the U.S., so often cited as a beacon for multi-culturalism and ethnicity, the recent Black Lives Matter movement showcased the scale of its own issues with the politicization of ethnicity.
For China, this is where bureaucracy emerges as an instrument for coercive paternalism. Those deemed a threat to national security are institutionalized. Through which, respect is to be taught via a re-education program espousing Chinese culture and adherence to Chinese social norms. Theory would dictate that the idea is that said individuals in time learn to have the mutual respect so desired in Habermas’ theory of national unity whilst de-radicalizing separatist tendencies. Rightly or wrongly, Xi Jinping’s approach of combining surveillance and rehabilitation represent the sticks upon failure of many of the carrots offered by previous leaders of the CCP: economic pragmatism, Han migration, and favorable ethnic public policy. This approach adheres to China’s unique form of paternalism and institutionalism, it is a further development in ethnic policy which seeks to balance depoliticization and culturalization, one that is embedded in its tradition of historical conservatism and Confucian ideals.
Like all societies, China doubtless has its issues. It is true that given its one-party political system and absence of a free-press distinguishing fact from fiction is difficult. It is possible that China’s treatment of its Uyghur population has been wrongful and excessive. It is possible that this also may not be the case. Let us not forget how our own countries here in the West acted in our very own ‘war on terror’.
Ethnic policy in China is likely to continue to develop over the next decade, we should both observe and listen carefully whilst trying to understand China from its own unique standpoint. From this starting point, the West can meaningfully engage with China in the international community which is essential if we are to construct a functioning international order which addresses some of the major problems facing the planet over the next generation.
Ultimately, rather than committing acts of ‘genocide’ as the UN Special Rapporteur and many western nations claimed, I would argue that without sufficient evidence this is hysteria. A dangerous political tool which I explored in the first essay of this series. Words carry a lot of weight in international relations. Thought leaders and diplomats choose them wisely and for a purpose. When discussing ethnicities in the West we often talk about integration. When its China this word becomes more sinister – assimilation. When we discuss the U.S. backed media and Hollywood its popular culture yet when its China it becomes once again more intentional and malicious – its propaganda and winning hearts and minds. This stuff does not happen by accident. Understanding this is the first step toward having open and honest conversations about socio-economic development models and what works – where.
-
Tianxia vs U.S Exceptionalism: spot the difference?
Too often we assess the words and actions of China by applying our own conceptions of good and bad; and right and wrong. It is important to first listen and then attempt to understand from its perspective to accurately represent its true intentions.
In this article, we will be exploring one Chinese perspective of world order through Tingyang Zhao’s updated concept of Tianxia. Tianxia translates in English to ‘all under one heaven’. All peoples of the world united under a single vehicle of leadership working toward a shared purpose for relational benefits.
This begs the question as to how we might achieve such harmony amongst peoples as opposed to conflict?
The theory dictates that harmony is to be achieved by winning the hearts and minds of everyone, everywhere; and a model of world governance. Understandably, for some readers, this might evoke fears of a Chinese utopian ambition for a Soviet-style communist empire. Perhaps readers whom self-identify as ‘liberal’ would warn that the spread of such a system would result in such homogeneity that the result is a loss of that which makes the world so interesting – its variety of cultures. They would likely posit that such centralisation of power and political decision making would eventually erode any semblance of democratic process resulting in a limitless authoritarian state not too dissimilar from a certain Orwellian dystopia.
But what do the Chinese say?
Tianxia in history
The Tianxia System is an ancient Chinese model of political organisation dating back 3000 years to the Zhou Dynasty of 1046. Its key organising principle uses the world as its unit of analysis, as opposed to the nation state so commonly used in the West.
Historically, the Tianxia System was a hierarchical sinocentric model of world government (despite only covering East Asia due to geographical knowledge restraints of the time) essentially with China at the core and everyone else at the periphery, as seen above in its artistic conceptualisation. All under heaven indeed included all known states under the proposed great ideal of Chinese society and its model of world government:
Tingyang Zhao, 2009
The Tianxia System of world government endured and maintained peace for centuries in the pre-modern East, finally ceasing to be a political goal in 221 BC. It has not been realised in China or anywhere else in the world since. Until recently.
Tianxia today
The Tianxia System is still yet to be realised in the modern world but the concept has been revitalised in the past 20 years within the Chinese academic and intellectual sphere of foreign policy and international relations as a concept with the potential to be modernised and applied to Chinese ambitions in the world today. This is largely in part to the academics Gungwu Wang (2008) and Tingyang Zhao (2006; 2009). Our focus is on the work of Tingyang Zhao (2006; 2009).
Tingyang Zhao does not advocate for a return to the hierarchical and sinocentric Tianxia system of tribute that once ruled the pre-modern East. Rather, he is theorising what a modern conception of Tianxia may look like and how it compares to the dominant theories of international relations today. I explore this below.
In Western theory, Rationalist thought posits that the world is anarchic. States are the highest unit of political authority and by nature self-interested. In a world devoid of global governance and policing, states engage in a zero-sum game of power politics. Liberalist thought agrees in principle that the world is anarchic but takes a more optimistic view that economic inter-dependence and relational prosperity counter the model of power politics.
Constructivist thought differs slightly in that it views the structure of the world as secondary. It is the internal actors of states that are most important. Societies, cultures and individuals are what determine the actions and reactions of states in the international system. Human actors are active agents in expressing their ideas and understandings of the world and therefore influence the actions of states.
Zhao’s conception of the Tianxia System rebukes such a notion and in contrast, rather than the nation state, the Tianxia System proposes a political institution that oversees the entirety of the world as its principle unit of analysis. Whilst this view accepts that internal order depends on external order, that is that ‘lower-level order such as the one between nation-states always depends on a higher-level world order of which nation-states are only constituent parts’ i.e anarchy, having an institution which oversees the governance of the world removes anarchy from the international system and thus immediately positions the Tianxia System at odds with Western theories of International Relations. Worldness subsumes national interests. Harmony displaces anarchy.
Is this not an admirable aspiration for human development in the world? Does this adhere to the good vs evil dichotomy we so often frame China within? A different question is that of plausability. That is of course subject to debate and contingent on varying perspectives of the world and international relations. Nevertheless, is daring to achieve rather than being so cautious as to fail anyway not a common teaching of the West? Why only in the context of international relations do we resort to an acceptance of the status-quo to which so many of us do not desire?
How are we to achieve harmony?
Harmony under heaven
Zhao’s conception of Tianxia proposes that harmony is best understood as a form of reciprocal dependence. A thing is not a thing unless recognised as such by another. This metaphysical concept is at the heart of chinese understandings of social relations and harmony. Such a concept is not foreign to Western understandings either. Aristotle himself has been attributed with the famous notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Applying this understanding as an order of international relations, Zhao summarises:
“This means that the order and peace of larger political societies is always the necessary guarantee for that of smaller ones.”
Tingyang Zhao, 2009Oncemore – harmony displaces anarchy in the Chinese perspective.
Zhao suggests that we are to achieve harmony through political legitimacy. However, political legitimacy is not to be achieved through democracy for democracy is insufficient for representing the world interest due to its focus on individual desires, which are manipulated in both elections and surveys, and because while democratic institutions may work in domestic politics they do not work on a global scale.
Zao evidences such a claim by challenging institutionalist arguments which posit the formulation of international institutions and organisations such as the United Nations fulfil the role of a world police on the basis that such organisations remain embedded in the statist system and thus prone to the very same power politics they seek to police:
“The UN has no substantial power, and is hence unable to resist a superpower’s dominance over the world.”
Tingyang Zhao, 2009States exist in a system of anarchy and without a policing authority above that of the state, any attempt to police will be of a limited effect hence the need for an ontology of worldness and state of harmony.
Chinese understandings of international order, given its ontological basis of the world, dictate an institution is good if and only if it can be applied on all political levels – from basic to complex, and local to global. Whilst the concept of a world government institution may sound strange to us here in the West, in Chinese understandings, it is legitimised by the condition that any world government would be required to correspond to ethical rightness.
In contrast to the hierarchy of units of analysis in Tianxia, ethical rightness ascends from families to states to world. This is because in this understanding, ethics are to be rooted in the basic forms of life. Family captures this basis as a symbol of human love, harmony, mutual concern and obligation despite some differences. This is in essence the fundamental Confucian principle that to govern is to follow a family model. One cannot govern if one does not follow the family model.
Spot the difference: U.S Exceptionalism
Despite spelling out the differences between Chinese and Western conceptions of international order, particularly U.S. led Western conceptions of democracy, Tingyang Zhao fails to acknowledge a fundamental similarity – the dictation of ethics.
Tingyang Zhao unfortunately embarks upon a complete reification of his notion of Tianxia in viewing it as a self-fulfilling prophecy on the basis that there are a set of universally acknowledged ethics to which all peoples agree and adhere to. This is a glaring error given this is one of the fundamental critiques from Chinese scholars and government officials of U.S. hegemony and its attempts to not only dominate the world system but to make the rules which all others must follow.
This criticism is well documented in the literature, perhaps most famously by WA Callahan, who argues that rather than a post-hegemonic alternative, what Tianxia offers is merely a new sinocentric model of hegemony:
“Zhao’s argument that Tianxia is all-inclusive seems to miss the point that
Callahan, 2009
not everyone wants to be included. Some people want to stay different and outside”.In this quote Callahan is alluding to the need for conformity of all peoples to the ethical rightness of Chinese society. Not everybody does agree and thus not everyone wants to be included within this system and conform.
But U.S. led global order is itself guilty of the very same fallacy. As have almost all great empires of modern history.
For almost a century, the most prominent academics and political leaders of the United States have repeatedly argued that the national identity of the United States is exceptional or more recently ‘great’ in that it is historically unique in being defined by a set of universal political and economic values best defined as: democracy, equality, private property, and markets. It is for this reason the United States was destined to lead the world, or so the rhetoric goes.
However, a quick review of U.S. foreign policy in the developing world allows us to identify a non-exhaustive list of U.S. intervention in states that did not adhere to the same values as the United States. Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1954; Congo, 1960; Dominican Republic, 1961; Vietnam, 1963; Brazil, 1964; Chile, 1973 to name but a few.
Fast forward 50 years and we see a continuity of this trend across the Middle East in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria; in Latin America we have had US backed coups in Venezuela alongside renewed threats toward Cuba. Now in 2023 we have a new pink wave of leftist leaders across Latin America challenged by domestic coups no doubt influenced by U.S. economic agents seeking to retain access to the regions wealth of natural resources.
This is the very point this piece seeks to highlight. We are often presented information heavily mediated to convey issues as binary choices of us vs them; friends vs enemies; good vs evil; left vs right; east vs west. With this series of essays, Economista blog seeks to cut through the headlines and present the most accurate picture possible, which requires an understanding of both sides. It is then for the reader to make a judgement of what they believe to be right in line with their personal beliefs.
Ultimately, the Chinese Tianxia System does offer an alternative to the current U.S. led international order. It does represent a model that could potentially bypass some of the issues of the nation-state ontology of Western international relations theory. Perhaps it is a utopia but shouldn’t we aspire for harmony as it suggests?
It also has its drawbacks. As previously mentioned, the Tianxia System relies on an assumption of universal acceptance of Chinese led ethical rightness similar to how the U.S. led global order relies on, to an extent, democratic peace theory (the idea that democracies are less likely to go to war with other democracies). Tingyang Zhao does not identify an explicit course of action for when states and actors do not accept. Although it should be noted that China does adhere to a self-imposed policy of non-interference in the affairs of other states. It also reaffirmed its ‘no first use’ in regards to nuclear weapons policy at the UN General Assembly in 2022.
Nevertheless, we have seen a rather more alarming and aggressive policy domestically, which we will investigate next time here at Economista.
-
Lessons on China from The Crucible: A negotiation between naivety and hysteria
In light of Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s recent comments warning democratic nations to “stop being naive” about China, this introductory piece marks the beginning of an Economista series of essays exploring the careful negotiation between naivety and hysteria we must all perform when it comes to China.
Personally, I am of the belief that it is simply irresponsible and quite frankly dangerous to view China solely through a western lens, and particularly a lens which views China’s rise and the United States’ demise in zero-sum terms. On the contrary, we should, and we must, try to understand China from the Chinese perspective.
Talk of China’s rise is outdated, China has risen and it is here to stay as a major player in international politics. Only through nuanced analysis can we set the tone for true diplomatic efforts which seek to ensure peaceful co-existence in a shifting international system. Conflict is never inevitable.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
Back in college, as part of my A Level in English Language and Literature, we were tasked with an analysis of Arthur Miller’s classic play The Crucible. The text was written during the 1950s era of McCarthyism in the U.S., which occured under the Eisenhower administration.
McCarthyism or ‘the Red Scare’ refers to a period of intense political clamp down on civil liberties in response to the rise of the Soviet Union and spread of Communism throughout Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia and Latin America. This clamp down was led by Senator Joseph McCarthy as Chair of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Whilst initially targeted primarily at the American Civil Service for fears of infiltration, the clamp down eventually reached into the lives of civilians with anyone believed to be in any way associated with Communism subject to investigation for accusations of being an enemy of the state.
McCarthy’s demise eventually came when he picked a fight with the U.S. army. McCarthy accused the army of vulnerability to communist infiltration due to lax security at a top-secret army facility. It was not the act of picking the wrong fight that led to demise of Senator McCarthy but his own lapse of judgement during the televised proceedings that followed, famously dubbed the Army-McCarthy Hearings. In an attempt to defend himself during the proceedings. McCarthy resorted to attacking the character of his opposition as he had so successfully done previously. Only this time, he had over-reached. McCarthy accused an attorney, part of the army legal team led by Mr Joseph Welch, of having links to Communism. Welch famously responded:
“Have you left no sense of decency?”
Joseph Welch during the Army-McCarthy hearings, 1954The rest is history. Senator McCarthy was politically finished overnight and died 3 years later in 1957.
Senator McCarthy had taken a real challenge to U.S. power, extrapolated it beyond reason to create mass hysteria, and used that hysteria to manipulate people, increasing his own power and influence along the way for ambition of furthering his political career.
Miller’s play is an allegory for this political context and explores concepts of self-interest, hysteria, reputation and power. Miller does this through a dramatisation of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The play is set in a theocratic society in which church and state are one meaning what constitutes morality is that which constitutes the law.
The plot follows: a group of girls are caught dancing in the woods naked around a fire. One of the girls, Abigail Williams, had indeed attempted to cast a spell that would kill the wife of a man she had been involved in an affair with and whom she still desired to be with. Within such a theocratic society, to perform not only witchcraft but also adultery could only be the work of the devil himself and to be punished accordingly. Abigail Williams would face a severe fate thus threatens the rest of the girls with violence against telling the truth.
Through either strategic self-preservation or complete opportunism, or a combination of both, one-by-one Abigail Williams accuses individuals within the community of bewitching her. She begins with the least reputable individual within the community, whom society is predisposed to convict, and continues upward the social ladder using her knowledge of domestic and communal disputes to pave the way for others to condemn their adversaries.
The story develops with an amalgamation of confessions and fake confessions, instances of revenge and deception all taking hold, eventually culminating in the death of a number of innocent members of the community. Abigail Williams’ ambition had been to use her increased power and influence in the community to rid of her lovers’ spouse and to marry him herself. This strategy ultimately failed. Her lover was hanged whilst she fled.
The parallels between Abigail Williams and Senator McCarthy are clear to see. What begins with an element of truth rapidly deteriorates into a mountain of lies and misinformation designed to create hysteria. This hysteria is capitalised upon by both for furtherance of their personal ambitions whilst innocent people are cast aside and punished. Ultimately, both become the architects of their downfalls when they overestimate their power and overreach and lose all the influence they had gained.
“The paranoid, real or pretended, always secretes its pearl around a grain of fact.”
Arthur Miller in the New Yorker (1996), Why I wrote the CrucibleSo how does this relate to U.S./-China relations?
Despite its experience with the dangers of hysteria U.S. foreign policy toward China exhibits the very same fundamental elements that we have identified during its era of McCarthyism. We have a foundational truth in that the rise of China does provide a challenge to U.S. unipolarity in the international system. It would be naive to think otherwise. China offers an alternative to the economic orthodoxy of U.S. led capitalism and holds a different set of values to those of the West.
Nevertheless, this truth has been exacerbated beyond what is reasonable with China’s economic, diplomatic, military and technological power all vastly overexaggerated. But above all else, what has been most overstated is China’s intention. The misproblematisation of China as a national security threat is a gross miscalculation that borders on negligence.
In the same way we had to ask ourselves how Senator McCarthy and Abigail Williams used hysteria to further their own personal ambitions, we likewise must ask ourselves to what end does the U.S. – both State and non-State actors – intend to use this hysteria? The answer is an obvious one. A continuity of the existing order which sees the United States as the global hegemon in a system of unipolarity. Whether this is realistic is another question.
China’s economy is growing and has been growing rapidly for nearly 50 years. In fact, China has arguably benefitted more from the current international order than anyone else, as the Biden administration has stated itself. China has not demonstrated nor stated any desire to attack the United States. It is quite simply wrong to classify China as a national security threat.
Instead, what we are to understand is that with growth comes the ability to invest more in other spheres such as the aforementioned diplomatic, military and technological prowess. All of which equate to greater power and influence in the world. This is common knowledge yet makes many in the U.S and the West uneasy about what type of power China will be.
This has resulted in many biased assumptions of China according to Western-led paradigms. Authoritarianism, human rights abuses, and surveillance all come to mind. It would be naive to negate these issues. What we must do is approach them differently – diplomatically.
In the West we are often too quick to attempt to impose our values on socieities who may not agree with them. I am not suggesting China is not held to account but that we contextualise problems, listen and attempt to understand the Chinese perspective – its values and its beliefs, its current affairs and its history. Are there not contradictions in the current international system of what we demand of China but shrug off ourselves in the West?
We must challenge existing thinking about the international order. Is unipolarity the only way? Why shouldn’t we contemplate bipolarity or multipolarity?
Over the course of the next few months, this collection of essays will seek to challenge existing thinking on China and offer new and thought provoking perspectives on a shifting international order.
See you next time!
-
The steady decline of British pride of place: time to level up
The UK is undergoing a constitutional crisis. 3 prime minister’s in less than 2 months. 5 prime ministers in 6 years. From levelling up to levelled down. Fiscal policy calamity meets cost of living crisis. Brexit consequences. UK soft power in the world is undoubtedly declining but how do perceptions compare at home in Britain’s towns and cities?
Well, many of our towns and cities are in fact CRAP.
A recent article in the i newspaper explored the reaction of residents on learning of the knowledge that their towns and communities had been voted a ‘crap town’ and one of the worst places to live in the UK by a variety of different pollsters and survey groups. Residents rather depressingly agreed with the findings and argued that many towns and cities had lost their sense of place.
This lack of civic pride is arguably the consequence of ingrained inequality in the UK. According to the Higher Education Policy Institute, just prior to Covid, more than 80 per cent of full-time students left home for study in the UK, compared with just 18 per cent in most of Europe. Professor Danny Dorling, leading social geographer at Oxford University, argues “that wouldn’t happen in a country that thought it had fewer crap towns, and more decent towns all round”. Whilst true, a singular focus on Universities is ignorant of those who do not wish to go to University and would be more suited to technical qualifications.
From the ‘anywheres and the somewheres’ (Goodhart, 2017) to ‘leavers and stayers’ (Social Mobility Commission, 2020) the literature on the relationship between identity, place and outcomes is extensive. Consensus suggests that there is a divide in British society between those who achieve their identities through both internal and external mobility in furtherance of their careers, and those whose identities are bound to a specific place and sense of belonging.
The former are typically highly educated and more likely to be employed in higher level socio-economic occupations compared to the latter who are less educated and typically employed in lower-level socio-economic occupations. This reflects an underlying lack of opportunity to gain skills in many places. The UK economy has for too long been geared towards the former group whilst negating both the value and the needs of those who choose to stay in their communities.
This was of course the underlying essence of the need to ‘level up’. It was about reducing the inequality within and between places. Investing in those people and communities which had been ‘left behind’. The creation of the Shared Prosperity Fund to replace the European Structural and Investment Programme, along with other new funding pots such as the Town’s Fund would complement the effort to focus on place and local communities. Improvements to public realm, infrastructure, transport and digital connectivity, skills and forging the right environment so that all of these ecosystem features function interconnectedly were well underway.
Whilst for education, the Skills for Jobs White Paper signaled a shift away from a sole focus on academic and professional pathways toward an education system that no longer evoked pretention but one that valued technical skills equally. A recognition that intelligence is not restricted to academia but multifaceted with different conceptualisations possible. Policy proposals such as T-levels would reform technical qualifications to align more with the demands of employers, the Skills for Life Guarantee and Lifelong Loan Entitlement that would mimic the student loan system for technical skill development.
Be it intentionally or whether they just happened to stumble there without truly grasping this, the fact remains that government policy was in danger of resembling a targeted and coherent strategy that could deliver on its promise to improve the lives of those ‘left behind’ through improving both their communities and opportunities through its Levelling Up agenda.
A lot has happened since the announcement of the Levelling Up agenda in the 2019 Conservative Manifesto. From Johnson’s partygate to Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s seemingly desperate attempts to test Johnson’s notion that ‘[you can’t] make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts poorer’ with their mini-budget. Culminating in the arrival of our most recent and current (for now) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
But aside from politics, recurrent changes in government instigate simultaneous shifts in policy. No longer are we to refer to the need to level up specific places and thereby improve opportunity but instead we are to revert back to vague business language. This time ‘investment zones’ are to join the list alongside the afamed ‘freeports’ or ‘free economic zones’ or even ‘free economic territories’. Designated areas within cities and towns which work to promote economic activity through a variety of different tax relief measures and agglomeration benefits. Such logic and rhetoric will be familiar to anyone involved with placemaking and local government over the past 20 years (perhaps further?). This kind of policy negates the very place in which it sits. It is a one-size fits all approach to different places with very different requirements. This does not work. History shows us that – whether it be the advent of out-of-town retail parks that saw the collapse of our town centres, or perhaps the numerous examples of gentrification and over-development which limit benefits to pockets of communities and exacerbate inequality.
This shift in policy symbolises a greater dissolvance of strategy. It is clear that government policy is not headed in one direction seeking to level up places but is now disjointed working in siloes with each whitehall department set on achieving individual goals. MHCLG or the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (lets see how long that lasts) have seemingly shifted their ontological framework from place to business and industry in everything but name. Meanwhile the Department for Education remains on its technical skills track and the Department of Health & Social Care pursues its attempts to tackle health inequalities.
Whatever the case, places need stable long-term public policy and investment to grow and provide greater opportunity for their people. The new Prime Minister must find a way to realign government policy to be working in tandem toward the shared goal of Levelling Up if we are to address inequality and realise our productive potential as a country and ensure the wellbeing of all our citizens.
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Economista 