UK faces China expertise crunch after exodus of senior diplomats

Shortage of Beijing specialists from Whitehall undermines Britain's ability to make policy at time of geopolitical upheaval

The British state is facing a chronic shortage of China expertise following an exodus of senior diplomats with first-hand experience of working in Beijing.

Whitehall insiders, academics and politicians warn that the loss of several China specialists is undermining the UK's ability to deal effectively with Beijing across multiple areas of policy from trade to security, AI and the net zero transition.

"Across Whitehall, at permanent secretary and director-general level, there's now no one who has real China experience -- people who have lived and worked there. There's a real shortage of expertise across government," said one senior figure in Whitehall.

The talent crunch comes amid concern inside government about a lack of Chinese language proficiency in both the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, according to people familiar with the matter.

Experts say the British state that moved quickly to build deep expertise on Russia at the onset of the cold war is failing to respond in a similar manner to China's re-emergence on the world stage.

The response contrasts with the US, which moved in 2022 to address some of its deficiencies with the creation of a new Office of China Co-ordination. Part of the state department and informally known as "China House", its remit is to ensure China is no longer analysed just as a bilateral relationship but as a force shaping every aspect of the world.

Prominent exits from the Foreign Office ranks over the past year have included Dan Chugg, the department's senior official in charge of China policy, and Kate White, who held that same role from 2017 to 2021.

Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies, said that even before Chugg and White's departure, the FCDO was already struggling to meet the demand for China expertise in the upper echelons of government.

"Their departures mean expertise on China is spread much too thin at a time when getting our relations with China right is more important than any time since the end of the cold war," he added.

Other notable exits include Joanna Roper, a former head of the Foreign Office's China department, and Owen Jenkins, who was director-general for Indo-Pacific, Middle East and north Africa.

Several leading UK-China diplomats are currently overseas and away from Whitehall, notably Dame Caroline Wilson, a former UK ambassador to China who is now in Brussels, and Peter Wilson, who succeeded her in Beijing.

Three former and serving UK officials said that the lack of expertise was increasingly becoming a problem in a government that has faced a string of highly complex and finely balanced decisions on China.

These include taking British Steel back into national ownership from its Chinese owner; a decision to block a Chinese company from investing in a Scottish windpower project; and granting planning permission for a new Chinese super-embassy.

The UK is also under mounting pressure to align with the EU's trade defence measures against Beijing, including imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

The talent shortage concerns emerged after the House of Commons Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee published a report this month warning that the UK's approach to China policymaking was characterised by "reactivity, inconsistency and opacity".

Committee chair Liam Byrne said the loss of so much expertise was hindering Whitehall's ability to make policy at a time of intense geopolitical upheaval, as the US and China were increasingly locked in competition.

"We need to join up our thinking on economic security, AI and trade, and work out how Britain navigates between the US, the EU and China," he said. "We're losing insight, experience and capacity to act."

Reasons cited for the departures include Foreign Office cost-cutting that led to senior figures being asked to reapply for their jobs, the failure to increase government salaries in line with inflation and the prospect of China experts earning far more in the private sector.

In an acknowledgment of the concerns, the Foreign Office has this year organised about a dozen full-day training sessions for diplomats and cross-departmental civil servants by UK-China Transparency, a research and education organisation that aims to raise awareness of China's impact in the UK.

Sam Dunning, UKCT director, said the group was starting from "a very low bar of understanding" when compared with Britain's efforts to build expertise on Russia at the start of the cold war.

Back then, "the government trained thousands of men to be fluent in Russian. None went to Russia; they all signed the Official Secrets Act," he said, adding that it was "striking to compare that to the really quite humble programmes and training" on China.

The Foreign Office said: "These claims are inaccurate and do not reflect extensive China experience at senior levels in the UK Government. We are investing up to £5mn this financial year on increasing China expertise across government and key sectors, in addition to our investment in languages."