When Keir Starmer met with Xi Jinping at the G20 summit last week, he emphasised the importance of a “strong UK-China relationship.” To make this a reality, the UK needs to rethink how it engages with China, both culturally and politically. British schools and universities can play an important role in this.
Starmer used his meeting with Xi to raise concerns about the treatment of pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen imprisoned in Hong Kong. It is an understatement to say that these two nations do not see eye to eye on many fronts. However, this merely strengthens my view that effective engagement between the UK and China is an imperative.
Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads, uses his work to explore what he sees as the West’s failure to properly engage with other cultures. “Although we keep hearing about how globalised we are,” he said, what that means in practice is that developing countries are “required” to understand other cultures, whilst “richer countries have tended to switch off their global exposure.”
Frankopan talks of how someone on a street in Shanghai would certainly be able to recognise a photograph of David Beckham. One wonders how many Brits would be able to name a Chinese popstar – let alone an emperor. When Frankopan spoke in 2020, there were fewer than 1,000 students at British universities studying Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Afghan languages, and Hindi – combined.
What does this say to the rest of the world about the UK’s efforts to engage with those beyond its borders? The British government should change the school curriculum to reflect the times in which we are living, times in which a failure to work with China is a failure to look to the future.
Every day that passes proves anew that the world is confronting issues which can only be dealt with through cooperation. The UK must certainly strengthen its relationship with China, as Starmer wants, but this can only be done by starting at the grassroots level.
“Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends the G20 Summit in Brazil” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY 2.0.