Lammy's 'progressive realism' begins from China

David Lammy's China visit signals Labour's bid to rebuild UK-China ties with a balanced approach in trade.

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy wrapped up an official trip to China as part of new Labour government's effort to take a "pragmatic" approach to engage Beijing, reconsolidating relations with world's second largest from scratch.

Under Conservatives, the China-UK "golden era" relationship towards the end of 2020 shifted into a higher gear as Theresa May in 2018 visited Beijing and discussed cooperation with Xi Jinping. Boris Johnson, despite America's pressure to block Huawei, in 2020 allowed Chinese telecom giant to operate in the UK on a limited level, seen as a "strategic defeat" for US.

But ecstasy didn't last long with London, just six months later, banning purchase of new Huawei equipment and announcing rooting out its 5G networks by 2027, shoving both countries into a vicious circle of a diplomatic war. The UK parliamentary committee's recommendation to counter Beijing's "'whole-of-state' threat" poured gasoline on fiery relationship. This "violent" shift from "courtship to aversion" was Tories "biggest mistake" that tipped the China-UK ties into further ambiguity.

Things seem to have slightly changed with new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a call with Xi in April sought to forge a long-term and closer economic relations with China and work together on international challenges, hoping to have "open, frank and honest discussions" on disagreements.

This helped melt the ice between two large economies, making some significant developments as UK's Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reportedly planning to visit China early next year to mull over resumption of Economic and Financial Dialogue with Beijing.

Britain's economy, after falling into recession in H2-2023, bounced back, posting an average of 0.6% growth H1-2024. As the China-UK trade dropped 21.1% to £86.5 billion in 2023 and Beijing accounted for just 0.2% of the total UK FDI in 2022, Starmer is seeing an opportunity to strengthen trade and investment ties with China and build on this year's economic gains. Reeves' remarks that Britain benefits from trade links, including with China, exports and imports and FDI suggest London's inclination towards an economic dialogue with Beijing.

It's the same mission former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair embarked on two decades earlier, predicting China to become world's largest economy in next 20 to 30 years. By augmenting trade and investment relations, he paved the way for "golden era", which lasted for more than a decade before collapsing over the US edginess of China's remarkable economic and technological advancement. Those heydays may be hard to emanate but impart diplomatic wisdom on how to rebuild relationship.

Other instances also suggest that London is cozying up to China. For example, UK Trade Secretary Jonathon Raynolds recently slammed previous government for doing little to build China-UK relationship and sought "more engagement with China", ruling out imposing tariffs on China-made electric vehicles.

Labour's approach is hinging on "progressive realism", a fusion of policies adopted by Britain's two former foreign secretaries, Robin Cook and Ernest Bevin, who respectively brought climate action and human rights to the diplomatic fore and helped create NATO and country's accession to military alliance.

Setting out his vision of "progressive realism", which American author Robert William claimed to have coined in 2006, Lammy in April criticised that UK's China policy had "oscillated wildly over the past 14 years" of Tory rule, urging Britain to "adopt a more consistent strategy, one that simultaneously challenges, competes against, and cooperates with China".

This strategy pursues a realist approach to advance progressive goals rather than just confining to disagreements. Lammy's doctrine is being widely vilified; it could enable Britain to explore realistic means of cooperation with the world's largest producer of clean energy, solar panels and electric cars that without engagement isn't possible.

The "broad consensus that economic globalization would inevitably breed liberal democratic values proved false. Instead, democracies have become more economically dependent on authoritarian states… China provides a particularly stark case," Lammy wrote. "In today's world, Western governments must partner with the Global South," he added, acknowledging western powers "undermined" sovereignty of weaker states.

While this economic dependence, with Beijing's exports also relying on foreign demand, has been reciprocal, West itself is responsible for the decline in the share of world trade between democracies from 1997 to 2022. As West squandered trillions of dollars in wars and operations to change regimes it deemed were incompatible with its liberal values, China spent those years in producing and flooding world market with cheap goods.

As West retreated over economic fallouts of wars after killing hundreds of thousands of people, triggering antipathy for it in Global South, China became aggressive and channeled trillions of dollars in infrastructure development across developing world. The West has only itself to blame for China ending the era of the US "hegemony".

With America focusing on Indo-Pacific to counter China, Britain is being warned against consequences of any retrenchment from region out of new British Defence Secretary John Healey's comments last year that Britain can't be a "strong military force in Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic simultaneously" and "there needs to be a realism about military commitments".

Both Britain and Europe are cautious. Over the US sea-change, EU is being urged to "defend Europe with less America" as Britain prioritises "NATO First" and limits its engagement in Indo-Pacific to "advancing technology (and) developing military capabilities".

China's role in net-zero and world trade is driving Labour into maintaining a "constructive" relationship with China even in areas where both countries' "viewpoints" diverge. British government's readout - accentuating significance of "working together" on global challenges and commitment to promote "secure and resilient growth through increased trade and investment" - suggests Lammy's realism has come into play in Labour's foreign policy. How his vision will meet the progressive ends though remains to be seen.