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Liam very nice to meet you Good to see you
We all know you have been doing a lot of
interesting things with China
Can yon tell us a bit more about your Chinese connection
so I started traveling working in China about
eight years ago when I was in the home office when we had a lot of difficult
conversations
and I was very struck then about how little western politicians knew about china
and so I have made my business for nearly 10 years now
to learn as much as I can about what's going on in China and build strong
personal and political relationships between Britain and China
but also do what I can to explain to
Western politicians some of the challenges that China faces
so it's been a great privilege for me to help launched the Economic and Finance dialogue
between Britain and China
and I sit on the board the GB China Council (Great Britain-China Centre), and I
launched the young leaders
Round table between Britain and China. I am now the
vice chair of the Parliamentary Group for East
Asian Business. I am a
very proud patron for Chinese for labour. So
lots and lots now And we all know London as the offshore centre
for the support of the Chinese currency RMB internationalisation
has really intrigued a lot of
interest between companies in both countries
however I remember in your book you actually said the real opportunities are
for British companies to "Go Global" with Chinese companies
so could you tell us a bit more why you think that way? yeah
sure if you look at the world's biggest companies, the world's biggest oil
Companies, the world's biggest
Banks, the world's biggest technology Businesses,
The world's largest asset managers, there's a
very small number of Chinese companies
on those lists. In the next to years that will change dramatically
because many of those companies will begin to
go global and Britain is a great partner
for Chinese companies on that mission
because we've been doing business globally for three hundred years
and so we have
great expertise going global, we have great strength
That are valuable to Chinese companies. In particularly
our ability to market it to the
international audiences so when you see deals like
the Giago partnership with very famous biology manufacturer in China
and you now see how they work together in global Duty Free's around the world
that is the lovely example of how very strong traditional
Chinese brand strength can together with
a great British global company do great new business together
in international markets and I think as China seeks to rebalance its economy
that will become more and more important
Since you are a big fan for China I notice another thing is your passion about
Chinese language,
mandarin and the British Council last year
launched the Generation UK program with a target
tried to you send another 15,000
UK students to have some Chinese experience, so do you think there is
anything else we could do to try to promote the
learning of Chinese languages and
culture between UK students and
Citizens? It's a great question. I feel very strongly
about it because
my eldest son is 13, and
He is a bright boy and because he's got a dad who talks about China
he is very interested in learning Mandarin. It's
impossible for him to study Mandarin
at his school and it's impossible for his brother and sister to study
Mandarin in their primary school.
that's gonna change. You know, he's teaching himself Mandarin
on a smartphone. He's found
apps online that he uses to practice his vocabulary and his speaking and he
has Chinese friends at school that they work together in
their spare time. that's crazy. There should be mainstream
provision so what we have got to do is to send a
very clear message to our schools the widening availability
of Mandarin and Chinese language tuition is
really important, not just the secondary school but a
primary school as well. So I think that in
a few years time you'll see more and more local government leaders
begin to ask their schools to widen the study of Chinese language but also the
study of Chinese civilization so at A-level we have
well-established courses in Greek and classical civilization
but actually there are not good A levels in
Chinese civilization. Now when I started my journey of
exploration, I didn't think culture was important I've changed my views
Completely. I think culture is fundamental so
study each other's histories study each other's language
i think is really important in inspiring our next-generation
who will do the next bit of work strength Britain China work close
Together. I noticed that your current portfolio
is a shadow minister for universities, and a lot of things it's about innovation
and research. You mention that China wants to move up
the value chain to become a nation of innovation by 2020
and the world leading country for science, so you propose a very exciting and
ambitious plan to create this innovation bridge funds to try to
encourage more UK cities to develop partnership on research and
development with Chinese cities, can you tell us a bit
more? yeah this is really important because
China has always need to sort what is often called the iPhone Problem-
millions of iPhones made in China very little of the value goes to
China and Chinese workers, so China has got to move up the value
chain. We are brilliant invention in this country we are some
the world best innovators and inventors and so I foresee a very
strong partnership innovation between Britain and China
and one of the things that I'll be doing this year with the
Parliamentary Group on East Asian Business is
we will try to bring together leaders of cities
at Parliament and will be trying to bring together
Chinese investors, and businesses and to see what can be done together. But one
the most important partners we want to bring in
are on the universities, because if you support university to university links
you create bridges across which you can move
people, ideas, and money and actually that is what's going to be most
important in creating this new partnership in creating
the innovation
over the years to come. My last question today actually about Chinese dream-
do you have a Chinese dream? my Chinese dream is that
China will become a
really important player in the next phase of globalization.
My hope is China can help the world get globalization right- that's my China Dream
That's a real powerful dream, I'm sure our audience will be
greatly appreciated by your special version of the Chinese Dream.