Business and Trade Committee — hearing of 30 June 2026: transcript & video

00:02 - 00:56

Speaker 2

Order, order. Welcome to today's session of the Business and Trade Select Committee as we pursue the last session in our inquiry on China. Thank you very much indeed, Chris Bryant, for joining us, and thank you, Kate and Lewis, for helping Sir Chris get the answers correct, not that he needs any help. Right, we'll see. Let's kick off, Sir Chris, on just tell us, not the slogan, because we know what the slogan is, just unpack, what is the China strategy?

We had the China audit, and that took stock about what was going on with China across government, and it was not published, but bits of it were in the various security documents. Is there actually a China strategy that ministers use to take a read when they're making decisions?

00:56 - 02:36

Speaker 1

Well, a lot of the China strategy is in the trade strategy, and there is a slogan, as you know. I actually slightly disagree with the slogan, because the slogan now only has two parts in it, and I think it should have three parts in it. But the slogan does explain part of the strategy. So, the two bits that are still in this slogan are that we want to cooperate where we can and where we must, and challenge where we must. I think we also need to compete where we must, and that's why, so for instance, after when the Prime Minister went to China, he was very keen that we should end up with talking about services exports, because one of the things the UK is phenomenally good at, as you know, is services exports.

We're a services superpower. It's an enormous set of opportunities in China if we can get this right, which is why we've set up this working group trying to put together some kind of services bilateral partnership. I think that that could potentially be very significant for us, and it solves one of the problems that China has, which is that it needs more support on financial services, on, well, the whole range of services sector. I am very conscious that as trade minister, I often am cooperating with them. Interestingly enough, we have now a joint working party between China and the UK on WTO reform and issues that arise.

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