We fully endorse the position expressed by Bronwen Maddox, Director and Executive Chef of Chatham House, on the need for the UK to mend fences with Europe and China.
Maddox argues with great realism that it is impossible for London to lock itself into a kind of ‘strategic self-sufficiency’. She writes, with a focus on UK-China relations : The dependence of universities on Chinese students and the income they bring is already well-known and heavily debated – but the exposure of the UK economy to digital technology and components from China is even greater, and China is now the largest source of imports for the UK with £63.6 billion or 13.3 per cent of all goods imports according to the Office for National Statistics. Much of that was laptops, computers, telecoms and phones as well as toys and clothes; there are few households or offices that will not have these products. China is also the sixth largest destination for UK exports, with £18.8 billion or 5.8 per cent of goods exports, much of it machinery and cars.
Our position is that, particularly at this time, the world does not need further separation but to rethink the structure of globalisation in terms of ‘political-strategic sustainability’. Today, however, every blow to the interrelationship damages both the destinies of the world and the national interests of individual countries. If not out of conviction, it is out of selfishness that we should open up instead of unrealistically trying to close in. With attention on politically governing global flows in the territories: this is what has been lacking over the past thirty years.
