Subnational Diplomacy Between the UK and China

This paper profiles subnational diplomacy between the UK and China, with a focus on the direct engagement of UK local authorities with Chinese diplomats and local governments. It draws on extensive interviews with these UK authorities. The paper assesses the preparedness of local authorities to capture the benefits and mitigate the risks of engaging with China and proposes actions to improve their effectiveness and resilience.

Around the world, city, state and local governments engage in subnational diplomacy to advance their policy agenda, against the backdrop of national policy and their role in their country’s overall governance. In China too, cities and provinces pursue international engagement to support trade and investment, to learn, to enhance civic pride and to project soft power on the world stage in a context where subnational diplomacy is more tightly linked to national policy objectives than in the UK. The role of the Chinese Communist Party and its United Front Work Department, which seeks to shape opinion at home and abroad, are important additional considerations that influence and, at times, constrain or determine how China’s cities and provinces engage with the UK.

Local authority engagement with China covers civic and cultural activities, trade and investment, the education sector, and some activities with local communities. Interactions are primarily with UK-based Chinese diplomats, in the context of twinning relationships with Chinese local governments and less formalised relationships with other local governments across China. Although recovering, activity remains lower than before the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of those interviewed in the research for this paper observed that, to date, civic engagement has proven more successful than trade- and investment-related activity. Educational links, especially the number of Chinese students coming to the UK, are strong and highly valued.

In engaging further with China, local authorities can draw on strengths developed in cities across the UK. These include the individuals who have developed longstanding experience with China, and the cross-sector organisational structures for engagement that some cities have developed to good effect. Cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Edinburgh and Belfast have used these approaches to develop warm relationships and strong reputations in China, resulting in tangible positive outcomes.

However, China has fallen down the priority ranking for local authorities in recent years; many councils judge opportunities offered by engagement with other countries to be greater. Spending pressures have reduced resourcing, exacerbating the always-present scale mismatch with Chinese city counterparts. China-related activity has become more politically contentious; security concerns loom larger. In this context, local authorities seek greater clarity from central government on the UK’s overall China policy, on the specifics of when and where to engage or not, and greater support on how to do this.

Now, as the UK ‘re-engages’ with China at senior political levels, local authorities have an opportunity to take a fresh look at their China-related activities. An important foundation for this effort is a more explicit articulation of the role of subnational diplomacy within the UK’s overall China policy. This can emerge from discussions between local authorities, the devolved administrations and the UK government about where they see opportunities.

At its simplest, however, the main factor holding back local authority engagement with China today is the widespread local assessment that, all things considered, the benefits do not outweigh the risks and the costs. Changing this would require clearer direction and guidance from the UK government and support to China capability-building.

There is substantial value to establishing a UK-wide framework that enables more effective local authority engagement with China. This would create an overview of activity, improve information flow, provide coordinated, granular guidance on UK–China policy and help build China capabilities locally.

There is a need to articulate more clearly for local authorities the areas where engagement is supported and where it is not. There should be clarity, without imposing or mandating, on the role that local authorities can play in UK–China relations, and where there is national-level support for local initiatives, avoiding mixed messages from different departments. There is also a need to provide and/or orchestrate the delivery of training and experience-sharing sessions across local authority leadership to strengthen China capabilities, not just among those working on a regular basis with China. Finally, those focused on China need to remember that the main priority for local authorities is naturally their own locality. Changing perceptions on the UK’s China policy and ensuring that key messages are ‘received’ takes time, persistence and effort. Communication with local authorities thus needs to be tailored accordingly.

Local authorities should develop their own assessments of the China opportunity, relative to other opportunities, guided by the UK overall policy context. This means assessing the benefits – most likely with a focus on trade, investment and education links – as well as the risks and how to mitigate them. Where the potential for benefit is clear (which will not be in all cases), authorities should adapt the holistic, cross-sector approaches to China engagement that have worked well in cities such as Manchester and Liverpool. Structuring engagement through larger authorities offers the opportunity for broader efforts and may help to address the resourcing challenge. Setting clear priorities and making judicious use of the UK’s official presence in China is also important. This all requires experience-sharing and training that builds China capabilities among a broad base of councillors and officials.

Where the UK and China collaborate more closely on areas of mutual benefit, local authorities are well positioned to play an important role. Whether they play such a role depends on decisions and actions taken at local and central government level to identify where the benefits of engagement justify the effort involved. It also requires measures to strengthen the capabilities of local authorities to engage successfully with Chinese counterparts – in other words, their China capabilities.