Trading Places: How Theresa May Went To China In Search Of A Brexit Bonus<\/b>
\nWhen Theresa May met Xi Jinping in the grand surroundings of his State Guesthouse this week, the Chinese President knew that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, and Shakespeare,\u201d he said, \u201c\u2018What\u2019s past is prologue\u2019.\u201d The quote from The Tempest is hardly famous, but for Xi it required little translation: all previous contact between the UK and China had been a mere scene-setter for the serious business ahead.<\/p>\n
It was music to May\u2019s ears, not least as she wants to project an image of a Prime Minister selling \u2018global Britain\u2019 abroad, preparing the stage for the next major act in the UK\u2019s history: Brexit.<\/p>\n
But despite the warm welcome for \u2018Auntie May\u2019 during her three-day tour, and despite talk of \u00a39n in trade deals \u2018signed\u2019, her critics back home may be left feeling this was all Much Ado About Nothing.<\/p>\n
Even before the trip began, No10 was busy spinning the scale of the project ahead. It claimed the 50 businesses and organisations travelling with the PM to China amounted to \u201cthe largest\u201d such overseas delegation \u201cof this government\u201d.<\/p>\n
It certainly was the largest for this government. But when David Cameron travelled to China in 2010 and 2012, he took a retinue of business leaders that dwarfed this week\u2019s effort, packing a jumbo jet with famous names and brands.<\/p>\n
The Department of International Trade even claimed that \u201950 businesses\u2019 were on the PM\u2019s RAF Voyager plane. A closer look revealed that of those fifty individuals, just six were privately-owned firms, around 15 were publicly-owned corporations. The majority were sectoral trade bodies or universities.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, when Xi visited the UK, Cameron also secured a whopping \u00a340bn in contracts. Yet even the \u00a39bn figure claimed by No10 for the May visit had a suspicious lack of detail.<\/p>\n
Every PM wants to roll out big numbers on foreign trips, but in some cases it was difficult to tell what direct role May had played. One of the biggest \u2018deals\u2019 hailed was with Chinese retailer JD.com<\/a>, yet its \u00a32bn appeared to be based on a projected increase in UK-China sales that may have happened anyway.<\/p>\n Some of the business people on the PM\u2019s plane privately complained they had been given such short notice that it had been difficult to arrange key meetings with counterparts in Wuhan, Beijing and Shanghai.<\/p>\n Others said that the very presence of a high level political delegation, especially one with meetings with the Chinese President and premier, provided that little bit of extra incentive to get Chinese firms, state bodies and banks to sign on the dotted line of contracts this week.<\/p>\n The string of announcements that accompanied the visit was sometimes threadbare. We were told that China\u2019s Terracotta Warriors were coming to Liverpool\u2019s Tate Britain offshoot, only to discover that the news had been revealed weeks ago.<\/p>\n May seemed to unveil a new crackdown on the ivory trade (a key issue in China), but it emerged that the Government was simply publishing the results of a consultation process that showed the public backed tough action.<\/p>\n There was a flicker of excitement when No.10 suggested the ban on British beef, imposed after the 1990s BSE crisis, would be lifted. Yet it turned out that the two countries had merely agreed to discuss progress on the issue.<\/p>\n When May visited Wuhan, home to the world\u2019s largest university, there were hopes she may say something about student visa changes, but instead there was an announcement about extending a maths teacher exchange programme that has been running for a few years.<\/p>\n Wuhan was the place where Chairman Mao pulled off his propaganda coup in the 1960s of swimming 16km of the Yangtze River in \u2018record time\u2019.<\/p>\n Former Tory Chairman May visited a scheme to see how tiny plastic particles are removed from the river, yet there was no big, eye-catching policy on joint projects to reduce plastic waste \u2013 which is meant to be one of her government\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n China contains five of the world\u2019s ten most plastic-polluted rivers in the world, but May only managed to raise the issue in very general terms with President Xi.\u00a0She did present him with a DVD box set of the BBC\u2019s Blue Planet II, which was hugely popular with Chinese viewers, complete with personal message from Sir David Attenborough. Rather unusually, we were not told what gifts Xi gave May in return.<\/p>\n May appeared wary of China\u2019s \u2018Belt and Road\u2019 initiative, a massive infrastructure project to link the country to Europe. However, some progress was made with a new U.K.-China \u201ctrade and investment review\u201d which No. 10 said was a \u201cfirst step\u201d on the road to a much deeper economic partnership.<\/p>\n The partnership sounded like the first glimmer of a hint of a post-Brexit UK-China free trade deal, clearly one of the big prizes May and any UK PM would want to get from Beijing. \u00a0And the true measure of this trip over time will not be in one-off \u2018deals\u2019 but in the increase in overall bilateral trade between the two countries. It went up by 6% last year and now stands at nearly \u00a360bn annually.<\/p>\n Some of the real business was done at behind-the-scenes \u2018round table\u2019 meetings between British and Chinese counterparts. One insider said that the financial services version featured some invaluable discussion of why China is keen to secure a special deal with the UK after Brexit, ensuring access to City of London funds and expertise not available elsewhere, in Europe or the US.<\/p>\n Publicly, the policy statements on both sides were more vague. Yet on Brexit itself, her supporters believe that a lack of detail remains a positive for May, despite the fears of some of her more impatient MPs that she is failing to show a clear lead.<\/p>\n Brussels warned again this week that the UK\u2019s lack of a vision for the precise kind of Brexit it wants risked undermining the whole project.<\/p>\n Tory backbencher Richard Graham, a China expert who flew out separately to join the visit, countered that by keeping her options open, the PM had managed to keep on board all parts of her party until she was ready to announce firmer detail. \u201cConstructive ambiguity is a skilful policy and the Prime Minister is deploying it superbly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On Friday morning, May certainly ducked several questions in her round of broadcast interviews with the BBC, Sky, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Not a single new policy or position emerged from her lips, and as she trotted out her mantra that she wanted a \u2018new chapter\u2019 relations between Britain and China, President Xi\u2019s promised \u201cgolden era\u201d sounded like a golden earache.<\/p>\n May is, of course, infamous for her fear of going off-script. After a round of similarly news-free broadcast clips on a previous trip to Japan, SkyNews infuriated Downing Street by running a headline \u2018Theresa May Says Absolutely Nothing At All\u2019.<\/p>\n When she arrived at the new UK-China Business Forum in Shanghai, she delivered another sleep-inducing speech, despite being introduced by Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Alibaba, China\u2019s answer to Amazon.<\/p>\n In a delicious irony, the British promotional video<\/a> that followed her speech featured cute English children talking about the merits of robots. \u201cIn the future, I think robots will do quite a lot of things,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n On which note, one source in China claimed that the PM\u2019s planning team had sent an instruction to some media ahead of this visit, warning them not to shoot any footage of May standing \u201cnext to robots\u201d. No.10 ridiculed the claim when it was put to them by HuffPost UK.<\/p>\n May\u2019s defenders will point out that doing business with China, let alone paving the way for a free trade deal, is never going to be a simple process. The PM saw for herself the sheer scale of the country\u2019s economy and challenges during her brief stay.<\/p>\n One headline in a local newspaper ran a headline that 12.9 million Chinese people had been lifted out of poverty by its extraordinary state capitalism model. But that still left 70 million people \u2013 more than the entire population of the UK \u2013 living below the poverty line.<\/p>\n At midnight on Thursday, Beijing also introduced yet another censorship crackdown, making it illegal to use a \u2018VPN\u2019 to circumvent the \u2018Great Chinese Firewall\u2019 that bars access to Google, gmail, Twitter and many other potentially difficult websites.<\/p>\n As a precaution before the trip, No.10 staff had all been issued with \u2018burner\u2019 phones. They were glad to be free of the need to constantly check emails or Twitter, but the measures taken to avoid being snooped on by China\u2019s ever-increasingly sophisticated cyber security agents spoke for themselves.<\/p>\n Some news from London did filter through, not least Brexit minister Steve Baker\u2019s suggestion that the civil service wanted to sabotage the UK\u2019s departure from the EU.<\/p>\n And just before take-off from Shanghai airport on Friday lunchtime, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox had also committed an act of news, making clear to Bloomberg TV that no kind of customs union with Europe would be consistent with an \u2018independent\u2019 trade policy.<\/p>\n Fox, who was the only minister to travel with the PM on the trip, had got to the heart of this China odyssey. His message was that Britain\u2019s future had to lie with new business in the rapidly growing parts of the world economy.<\/p>\n He was certainly a big hit with the British business people on the RAF plane on its homeward bound journey. As the alcohol flowed, Fox was surrounded by entrepreneurs who wanted a selfie with him. One spotted the \u2018Emergency Exit\u2019 sign, joked about Brexit, and took a snap on their smartphone.<\/p>\n Another businessman, not a Conservative, had nothing but praise for Fox. \u201cThat bloke is brilliant, the work he does for British business. I used to ring up the Department for Business and no one would answer the phone. Now we have a new department and they are superb.\u201d<\/p>\n But the real surprise for May\u2019s critics came when she decided on an impromptu tour of the plane home.\u00a0 Walking with husband Philip up the aisle, she came through the curtain from business class to economy and was greeted with spontaneous applause from the business people seated before her.<\/p>\n The man<\/a> who led the clapping was Stuart Garner, CEO of Norton motorcycles. Based in Donnington Hall, Derby, he has revived the famous marque by putting his product in the latest James Bond film and selling in new markets overseas. On this trip, he secured multi-million pound licensing deals with Chinese engine manufacturers who want to meet EU emissions targets.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s just fantastic,\u201d Garner said of May. \u201cThe media doesn\u2019t get to see what she\u2019s really like. And as for Brexit, it won\u2019t be an issue in a few years\u2019 time. Trade with countries like China will make sure of that.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time the Prime Minister returned to her mini-office at the front of the Voyager, thoughts of leadership plots back in the UK may have been far away.<\/p>\n The PM could even have been forgiven for wanting to quote another line from Shakespeare\u2019s Tempest, when one character declares \u201c\u2019Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.\u201d Whether a restless Tory party allows her to prosper as its leader is the next plot twist for the Westminster stage. Trading Places: How Theresa May Went To China In Search Of A Brexit Bonus When Theresa May met Xi Jinping in the grand surroundings of his State Guesthouse this week, the Chinese President knew that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. \u201cFor me, and Shakespeare,\u201d he said, \u201c\u2018What\u2019s past is prologue\u2019.\u201d The quote from … Continue reading Trading Places: How Theresa May Went To China In Search Of A Brexit Bonus<\/span>
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