The report, produced by an international grouping of China-sceptic legislators that includes members from all major UK parties, says the power imbalance in the relationship with the world's second largest economy is compounded by 'muddled policy and weak engagement'.
Ipac cites an example of a visiting Chinese delegation who noted that no senior government official engaging with Beijing was a Mandarin speaker or had significant experience of living in China. While British expertise exists, the report argues it is often siloed and 'not translated into capability'.
'Successful UK engagement with China must always be framed by an understanding that the PRC is an inherently hostile authoritarian state that does not share our values,' an underlined sentence in the audit reads.
The former security minister Tom Tugendhat endorsed the findings, calling them 'a clear-eyed and realistic take on the defining foreign policy problem of this century, filling a gap left by years of policy neglect'.
While the report accepts that disengagement is not an option, it recommends better institutional coordination, stronger use of national security tools, and diversification of supply chains. It identifies emerging technologies such as AI as posing new challenges in disinformation and surveillance, but singles out climate change as a low-risk area for cooperation, while acknowledging that meeting climate targets will require accepting 'medium-term dependence' on supply chains it says are 'tainted by forced labour and unfair trade practices'.
Kerry Brown, a former diplomat and director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London, welcomed the recognition that better language skills are needed but argued that 'the critical issue now is lived experience' in China. He suggested that some Ipac members promote a security-oriented view that visiting China exposes one to risk, adding that 'you can't teach really important things in a classroom; you can only go and learn them through daily life'.