Ministers' stereotypes offer food for thought

Remarks about pigs' ears and chicken feet point to need for sensitivity about UK's international partners

Any reader of the British media could be forgiven for thinking that one of the most attractive opportunities that leaving the European Union offers the UK is the ability to sell marginal agricultural products to China.

The latest proponent of this plan was Michael Gove, the minister for the environment and agriculture, who told a meeting at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this week that when the UK leaves the EU, it will be able to sell pigs' ears to China for the first time.

Gove was not the first minister to identify such potential. In March, George Eustice, the farming minister, told Parliament that Brexit would allow Britain to sell animal parts that could not be sold in Britain and Europe.

"It never ceases to amaze me that chicken feet are a delicacy in China and can attract a high value, far, far higher than they can get here in the UK," he said.

This lack of ambition displayed by the two ministers is notable. There is no EU impediment to the UK trading with China, and an immense amount of trade and investment is going on. In recent years, China has invested more than $40 billion in the UK. It is a partner in the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant; it is building an electric taxi plant in Coventry; and it is a major buyer and developer of British real estate. This week, Chinese warships visited London, and not a week goes by without the announcement of a new research and development agreement between China and the UK.

One might justify the comments because chicken feet and pigs' ear are part of the remit of Gove, the minister for environment, food and rural affairs and Eustice, the junior minister for agriculture, fisheries and food.

But Gove might associate China with its dominance in solar power or the Chinese smart bikes that are transforming British cities. Even Eustice could point to countless Anglo-Chinese agricultural research projects or multimillion-pound export contracts.

Perhaps it's easy to underestimate pigs' ears and chicken feet. US poultry farmers have been trying to offload their chicken feet to China for years - the United States has around 18 billion per year to offer - but the on-off trade founders on the complexity of international trade deals and the competing needs of reciprocity and US congressional approval.

But I don't think either minister has invested much thought or effort into selling pigs' ears and chicken feet to China. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs did not respond to inquiries about its activities on the chicken feet and pigs' ears trade.

It is most likely the ministers were speaking off the cuff and without notes or information, which led them to make facile points and lazy stereotypes about China.

Many in Britain were brought up on rather one-dimensional views of the rest of the world, and no one exemplifies that better than Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary who has managed to insult too many races, countries and leaders to mention. Britain has changed immensely, but prejudice is still alive among its current set of ministers.

In Gove's defense, he was perhaps willing to sacrifice sense to make a convoluted joke. There is a saying in English that you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. It means that you can't make something of value from something without value. Gove was trying to turn the phrase on its head. But he failed, and what appeared to be stylish was meaningless.

As the UK government continues its negotiations to leave the European Union, one hopes that ministers can be more sensitive about its international partners and improve on their witticisms, and that the country has more to offer the world than pigs' ears and chicken feet.

The author is a senior editor at China Daily UK. Contact the writer at conal@mail.chinadailyuk.com.

(China Daily European Weekly 10/13/2017 page11)