To kowtow, bend the knee, or stand tall? UK-China relations 250 years apart
In 1793, China believed Britain had nothing to offer. Has this changed?
This is the first of a new format of opinion pieces on Observing China which will analyse the domestic and foreign policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This first Thinker is by Grace Theodoulou, Policy Fellow at China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy.
The Thinker | No. 01/2025
Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its borders. There is therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.
So read the blunt message to King George III of the United Kingdom (UK) sent by emperor Qianlong following Britain’s first diplomatic mission to China in 1793. The 100-member delegation of the so-called ‘Macartney Embassy’, was led by the statesman George Macartney, the first British envoy to China. Due to a long-standing trade imbalance between Britain and China, largely driven by British demand for Chinese tea, porcelain and silk, King George III sent an envoy to Beijing with four main requests. These included access to new trade ports and a permanent embassy in Beijing.
Emperor Qianlong famously rejected all of these requests. It is often thought that the mission failed because George Macartney refused to kowtow nine times before the emperor as was required for visitors to the imperial court. Instead, he compromised with one kowtow and a western genuflexion.
Did you know? ‘Kowtow’ [磕头] is a Chinese word.
But historians, both from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and abroad, have since surmised that a general incompatibility in world views was to blame. Macartney refused to acknowledge that the emperor, as ‘the Son of Heaven’ with no equal, was superior to King George III, hence why he declined to prostrate himself repeatedly.
Macartney believed that his country, a burgeoning imperial power, was the most important in the world and not the ‘middle kingdom’ (also the translation of the Mandarin name for ‘China’) at the centre of the Earth. Because Macartney did not subscribe to these two core beliefs, upheld by the Chinese imperial court for millennia, he was sent home empty-handed.
This begs the question: did the trip of Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the PRC last week amount to a full ‘kowtow’, as some Whitehall officials have said?
She did not help the UK negotiating hand by ploddingly repeating that to not engage with the PRC is ‘no choice at all’. In her op-ed to The Times, Reeves belaboured the fact that the PRC is the world’s second-largest economy. Perhaps through flattery, she hoped employing a different tactic to her predecessor 232 years ago might yield better results. But did this succeed? Or did it reek of need?
In defending her trip during a financial bond crisis at home, she dangled the phrase ‘second-largest economy’ in front of readers multiple times. But if the PRC is such a tantalisingly lucrative option, why did she walk away with a deal that at best, will amount to 0.007% of Britain’s £2.5 trillion economy?
Reeves secured a paltry £600 million of investment from the PRC (a £14.6 trillion economy) over the next five years. Compare this to the £18 billion investment the UK secured in 2023 from Japan (a £3.4 trillion economy). Or the £4 billion investment from Malaysia announced on the 15th January.
Reeves is also at pains to disassociate the Labour government from its Conservative predecessor’s handling of the relationship with Beijing and, according to her and other Labour politicians, its perceived failings.
This want to be different is harmful. When dealing with an authoritarian regime such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Britain should present a united front. The Chinese government certainly can – there has not been another political party in power since 1949.
Having successive governments within a democracy is a strength. It allows for economic and social growth and political accountability. Agents of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) can find ways to exploit Labour’s dire need to appear different to their predecessors. His Majesty’s (HM) Government should not allow its democratic nature to become a weakness. Like the Chinese, the British government should present a (non-pernicious) ‘united front’.
The criticism served lavishly by Lammy, Reeves and Starmer on the Conservative government appears to be more than simply part of the game of politics. Reeves seems genuinely to believe that the previous leadership should have been more ‘consistent’ in its diplomacy with Beijing.
Was the previous government not correct to change its tune when Xi became more aggressive both domestically (in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet) and internationally (in the South China Sea and Taiwan)? Or when the UK saw a marked increase in cyberattacks from the PRC? Will Labour change its tune if Beijing displays even more hostility than it already has?
It is also worth noting the hypocrisy of Reeves’ claim that ‘the previous government failed to realise the value of engagement with China’. Recall that the so-called ‘Golden Era’ of UK-PRC relations happened under the previous Conservative government, which Labour rightly criticised for too much engagement with Beijing. Reeves cannot prioritise party politics over establishing a prudent and transparent strategy for engagement with the PRC.
David Cameron and George Osborne spearheaded the ‘Golden Era’ of bilateral relations because the PRC emerged relatively unscathed from the 2007-2009 financial crisis, and they believed it offered the UK something of a lifeline. But they failed to recognise that the PRC’s economic growth was unsustainable, and Xi’s ever-asphyxiating grip over the country.
Now that Britain and its allies have seen the CCP’s record aggression since Xi took office in 2012, and the General Secretary has laid out his ‘red lines’ in diplomatic relations with foreign nations, leaders in the free and open countries cannot claim to be in the dark about just how uncompromising Xi is willing to be.
Reeves, much like Macartney, returned from Beijing to ridicule and accusations at home of having presented the UK as weak and supplicating. Both faced a similar predicament in soliciting a better trade deal from a nation that saw itself as more than Britain’s equal. So will the current leadership in HM Government allow history to repeat itself – or should they try a different approach altogether?
Grace Theodoulou is the Policy Fellow at the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy.
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The mere mention of Hong Kong in your article ought to be sufficient to convince any self-respecting British politician that supping with the CCP should be done with a very long spoon.