Page:ISC-China.pdf/67

The 'Strategy': Frameworks, Plans and Pillars

The NSC approved the China Framework in November 2018. It is intended to cover "the depth and breadth of UK-China engagement and the implications of China's growing geopolitical and global role".

The China SRO is responsible for developing the strategic framework (making sure it covers economic, security and influence interests) and getting it agreed by the NSC; for overseeing implementation of the strategic framework; and for co-ordinating issues relating to China across the Government. In 2019, the SRO explained the role:

"I don't see it as my role as SRO to be responsible for every single decision across government on China, that would be too big a task and would avoid the ownership that we need across the whole system, but it acts as a brokering mechanism so that, if there is a specific point on which a department are disagreeing, the NSIG which I chair can act as the triage and be clear how we want to resolve those differences and make sure clear advice is being given through Ministers, to Ministers, either through a 'write-round' or ultimately through a ministerial discussion at the NSC."

In 2019, the Committee was told that the cross-government National Strategy Implementation Group (NSIG) was responsible for developing and implementing policy in order to deliver the China Framework. The NSIG was an attempt to improve cross-government co-ordination without centralising the response. It meets monthly and is attended by: ***. ***. The SRO explained:

"what we are really trying to do is not have a process which has Ministers agreeing a set of priorities and the system not following up, which was very much our feeling of what had been happening in the past, but to have a clear set of objectives, indicators which then the system is being driven to follow through."

The 2018 China Framework consists of six 'pillars':

'Trading Safely'; ***; 'Countering Security Threats'; ***; Digital and Technology'; and ***.