Rethinking China’s ‘economic coercion’: The case of the UK leaders’ meeting with the Dalai Lama in 2012
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221126914 |
| Author | Biao Zhang |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221126914
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2023, Vol. 25(4) 723 –739
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481221126914
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Rethinking China’s ‘economic
coercion’: The case of the UK
leaders’ meeting with the Dalai
Lama in 2012
Biao Zhang
Abstract
In 2012, David Cameron met the Dalai Lama. In retaliation for the meeting, China froze bilateral
relations for 18 months. Subsequently, Cameron pledged to have no more meetings with the Dalai
Lama and reiterated British recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. For some, China used
economic punishment to extract the UK’s concession. For others, China used only diplomatic
punishment. This article argues that both sides have underestimated the complexity of the case
and need to integrate their insights for a better explanation. While China did not impose or
threaten economic sanctions on the UK, its diplomatic sanctions put both political and economic
pressure on the UK to concede. This article contributes to the studies of China–UK relations and
China’s ‘economic coercion’.
Keywords
British Foreign Policy, China–UK relations, coalition government, Dalai Lama, economic
coercion, economic statecraft
Introduction
On 14 May 2012, the then British Prime Minister (PM), David Cameron, and the Deputy
PM, Nick Clegg, met the Dalai Lama in London. In retaliation, the Chinese government
summoned the British ambassador, cancelled senior Chinese politicians’ visits to the UK,
suspended ministerial contacts, and postponed all the institutional dialogues. Facing
China’s angry response, Cameron did not immediately capitulate. However, on 8 May
2013, he stated to the House of Commons that the UK ‘recognized Tibet as part of China,
respected Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, and did not support Tibetan independence’
(Hansard, 2013). Cameron’s statement started thawing the diplomatic ‘deep freeze’,
School of Political Science and Public Administration, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing,
PR China
Corresponding author:
Biao Zhang, School of Political Science and Public Administration, China University of Political Science and
Law, No.27 Fuxue Road, Beijing 102249, PR China.
Emails: biaozhang@cupl.edu.cn
1126914BPI0010.1177/13691481221126914The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsZhang
research-article2022
Original Article
724 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 25(4)
which was ended when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, and the
then Major of London, Boris Johnson, visited China in October 2013. Two months later,
when Cameron (2013) himself visited China, he pledged not to meet the Dalai Lama
again and focused on developing ‘our bilateral trade and commercial relationship’.
While the dispute between China and the UK over the Dalai Lama meeting has been
resolved, scholarly debate over why the UK acquiesced to China is still unresolved. There
are two competing explanations.
One explanation is that China used economic punishment to compel the UK to change
its position. In the same way that China imposed economic pains on the French president
Nicolas Sarkozy for meeting the Dalai Lama, China punished the UK by ‘harming eco-
nomic interests’ (Parton, 2019: 29) and wielding economic ‘sticks’ (Reilly, 2017: 176–
177). The British leaders’ concession makes the case one of the most ‘well-publicized’
and ‘successful’ illustrations of ‘PRC economic coercion’ (Kastner and Pearson, 2021:
26; see also Chen and Garcia, 2016).
The other is that China used diplomatic punishment to compel the UK to change its
position, without exerting economic pressure. China placed a ‘diplomatic freeze’ on the
UK (Brown, 2015: 43), relegating the UK leaders into a diplomatic doghouse (Benner
et al., 2018: 21; see also Brown, 2018: 105). However, bilateral trade grew, and China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) continued to invest
(Blanchard, 2014: 166; Zhang, 2019: 1465–1466). The British leader’s concession dem-
onstrates that China’s diplomatic pressure alone compelled the UK to comply, without
exerting economic pressure.
The debate between the two groups remains inconclusive. The economic-coercion
explanation appears to provide a plausible account of the UK’s concession, given China’s
tendency to use economic sanctions to achieve political objectives. However, the argu-
ment rarely demonstrates exactly how China deployed economic-coercive measures. In
contrast, the diplomatic-sanctions explanation provides clear evidence of China’s use of
diplomatic punishment. However, it rarely expounds how China’s diplomatic pressure led
the UK to change its position.
This article seeks to provide a conclusive answer. It reconstructs the episode through a
detailed analysis of the British leaders’ interviews, memoirs, and speeches; news reports;
official statements and statistics; and policy documents. It argues that both sides have
underestimated the complexity of the case and need to integrate their insights for a better
explanation of the British concession to China. On the one hand, the economic-coercion
explanation is inaccurate because China did not impose or threaten the UK with economic
sanctions. Instead, China kept developing its trade, investment, and financial relation-
ships with the UK. But on the other, the diplomatic-sanctions explanation is incomplete
because China’s diplomatic sanctions generated political and economic pressure on the
UK to force a concession. Economically, the UK feared being disadvantaged in the race
against Germany and France to build economic ties with China and worried about future
investment from and opportunities in China. The political and economic pressure accounts
for the British leaders’ concession.
This article can make several contributions. First, it contributes to the study of China–
UK relations. Over the last decade, much attention has been paid to the cooperative
dimension of China–UK relations, such as the ‘Golden Era’ in China–UK relations in the
context of the UK’s ‘pivot to Asia’ (Breslin, 2017; Brown, 2015; Turner, 2019), China’s
growing investment in the UK (Harris, 2017; Zhang, 2019), and China’s collaboration
with the UK on Renminbi internationalisation (Green, 2018; Green and Gruin, 2020;
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