Zhang Biao, Beijing’s man in Scotland, warned earlier this month that a proposed friendship agreement between Edinburgh City Council and Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung would ‘hurt the feeling[s] of the Chinese people’. The people of China, from Shenzhen to Harbin – all 1.4 billion of them – can sleep easy tonight: the proposal has been pulled from the council’s agenda. Whether it will reappear is unclear. The city’s leader, Cammy Day, has announced that ‘more discussion is required before taking this agreement forward’. Discussions which could presumably, if necessary, go on indefinitely.
Edinburgh Airport feared the agreement could harm work to increase the number of direct flights to China
Anyone with the faintest understanding of Beijing’s paranoia over Taiwan – and the way in which China is willing to weaponise anything to enforce their ‘One China’ principle worldwide – will know that the suspension of the Edinburgh-Kaohsiung partnership has little to do with safeguarding the sensibilities of the Chinese people. It was motivated by fear.
Biao’s warning letter revealed as much. ‘Edinburgh would benefit little but lose a lot’ if the friendship agreement was signed, the consul-general warned. It would ‘bring about serious consequences to our bilateral relations’, ‘which,’ he added, as if his government had no control over the matter, ‘we do not want to see’.
Continued prosperity in exchange for subscribing to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party is a familiar deal. So what was at stake if Edinburgh broke free of Beijing’s protection racket? Quite a lot it seems, at least according to numerous city business groups (some of who had been contacted by displeased Chinese diplomats).
Edinburgh Airport feared the agreement could harm work to increase the number of direct flights to China. The city’s Hotels Association highlighted to councillors the importance of Chinese tourism. The local Chamber of Commerce also raised concerns.
The University of Edinburgh, meanwhile, urged the council to carefully consider the ‘risks associated with the general denigration of relationships with partner bodies in China’. Given that students from the People’s Republic constitute the biggest cohort of students at the university from outside the UK, their carefully crafted call for caution is understandable. It has even been claimed that Beijing was threatening to block visas for Chinese students at all Scottish universities, not just Edinburgh.
Signing the agreement could also, according to a document obtained by the city’s local democracy reporter, increase the risk of a cyber-attack against the council, a risk which was already deemed ‘very high’.
One hopes that politicians in Scotland’s capital show a bit of fortitude and do not back down. Councillor Day has reiterated his belief that his city should be developing ties with other ‘progressive and open-minded’ cities, like Kaohsiung.
It is much easier for Beijing to bully one council, as it tries to take a principled stance. Perhaps then other council leaders could show solidarity by initiating their own efforts to explore opportunities to develop cultural, educational, and commercial ties with Taiwan.
For now, no British town or city is – as far as I can tell – twinned with a Taiwanese town or city. Twinning efforts initiated by Oxford City Council in 2020 appear to have gone nowhere. There are many similar agreements linking places in Taiwan with the rest of the world, including many American cities and state capitals. So why is the UK so cautious about developing closer ties?
Perhaps this ugly incident, which has once again exposed the Faustian nature of UK-China relations, could act as an impetus for a flourishing of British-Taiwanese twinning agreements. I for one have already reached out to my local councillors about the matter, hopefully others will too.
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