{"id":9679,"date":"2022-03-15T07:30:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T07:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=9679"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:44:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:44:22","slug":"where-does-the-uk-china-trade-relationship-stand-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/where-does-the-uk-china-trade-relationship-stand-in-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does the UK-China trade relationship stand in 2022?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In considering UK-China trade from China\u2019s perspective, the UK appears to leave a lot to be desired as a trade partner, and the fact that the UK has not had a high-level trade dialogue in recent years is starting to set it apart among its peers, writes Joe Cash<\/span><\/h2>\n

The prospect of UK-China trade talks recently caused a furore in Parliament. The notion that the government would want to resume the UK-China Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCo) was nothing short of a scandal for some MPs. Fortunately for them, the JETCo has been postponed. A lack of preparation time and concern that both sides would bring less to the table than they\u2019d have hoped is the official explanation for its delay. But a JETCo is a far cry from the trade talks various backbench MPs were bristling over. <\/span><\/p>\n

It would have been an odd principle to hold on to had this continued, considering that, in reality, a JETCo merely serves to signal that trade matters. And there would have been a long way to go before the UK and China found themselves signing a trade deal. Indeed, that would have been to misunderstand the purpose of a JETCo, which, at the most, exists to display a willingness to talk trade \u2014 which is obviously important in a diplomatic context. After all, the UK does maintain a trade relationship with China \u2014 adding around \u00a313.5 billion to Britain\u2019s economy every year.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The prospect of talks on UK-China trade is of interest to Beijing, and they need not be formal trade talks surrounding the feasibility of a UK-China Free Trade Agreement. As China has proven time and again with the EU, the US and other markets, a brief bilateral on a topic as bland as regional indicators would do. But the UK needs to show it is willing to countenance China. The relationship needs to progress. As China\u2019s diplomats understandably continue to point out, their country isn\u2019t going anywhere, and, if that wasn\u2019t enough, it now has more trade partners than any other country \u2014 and the UK is just one of them.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That the UK has not had any high-level trade consultations with China in recent years is beginning to make it a bit of an outlier: France concluded an Economic & Financial Dialogue (EFD) with China just before Christmas; Germany participated in similar bilateral consultations last April; the US has been negotiating with Beijing right through the pandemic; while Japan and South Korea have been meeting with Chinese officials for both trilateral and multilateral trade negotiations for close to a decade.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, UK-China trade relations appear to have stalled \u2014 even if the value of the trade relationship continues to grow. And as David Rennie and Bill Bishop explained so well recently, that makes the UK a target for China\u2019s \u2018Wolf Warrior\u2019 diplomats, who, rightly or wrongly, feel that the UK is not buying into China\u2019s rise.<\/span><\/p>\n