Stanley Johnson Speaks to G&T on UK-China Relations and More

Stanley Johnson has called on his son, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to stand up to his Tory MP critics on China and "move to discussions" with Beijing, as "we've got to engage with China at an intellectual level".

The environmental campaigner and former Tory MEP said a trial of strength against China would end in failure, as "I don't think there's any way in which we can match China weapon for weapon for weapon".

In an interview with G&T to be broadcast on Times Radio this Sunday morning, Stanley also revealed he once sang sand 'The Hippopotamus Song' with the Chinese Ambassador during one very friendly meeting. He also said the PM is wrong to oppose carbon taxes.

On China;

"China is absolutely not a bette noir. It's the key to so many things. In political terms, it's absolutely vital we work very closely with China. He (Bosi) is right not to write off China at this point - on the contrary, I think he's right to move to discussions with China, important discussions. It is inevitable, even more inevitable now that we have left the EU."

Asked whether the UK should be tougher with Beijing, he said:

"Well, I don't think we're going to do that. I don't think there's any way in which we can match China weapon for weapon for weapon. I do not think that makes any sense at all, we've got to engage with China at an intellectual level. Look at the number of Chinese students at British universities today. Can you imagine the effect on British universities, even the financial effect on British universities, if we had a rupture now with the Chinese? I mean, a lot of them would just go out of business, that they are so dependent on Chinese students, Chinese research, and so on and so forth. So I feel quite strongly. Now. I've got a lot of respect for people like Tom Tugendhat, but I would be worried by a tendency in the Tory party to suddenly, you know, cook up... maybe they'll be distracted by Ursula von der Leyen. We'll see, maybe their aggressive instincts can be redirected to Brussels at this point in time."

On whether his son should stand up to Tory backbenchers and their concerns over China, he said:

"Yes, I would absolutely, that would absolutely be my case. I've had a wonderful moment. You mentioned my dealings with the Chinese Ambassador. Well, I went with a lovely gentleman who was head of the RSBPB, and we went to talk to him, really about the link between biodiversity and climate change. And we ended up talking about the importance of mud as a carbon absorber. And it turns out an acre of mud absorbs thousands of times more carbon than an acre of rain forests. Anyway, we ended up singing the Flanders and Swann song, 'Mud mud, glorious mud'. It was a wonderful moment. After that, unfortunately, COVID broke out so we didn't get to the final verse, which I was very much looking forward to. We sang it with the Chinese ambassador, in his wonderful suite of rooms, and with his staff and things, 'mud mud glorious mud, there's nothing quite like it for cooling the blood'. I wanted to get on to this, 'follow me, follow' bit because I thought it'd be interesting, but we didn't quite get onto that."

On carbon taxes:

"The other day, the government appeared to be quite relaxed about Cumbria going ahead with this coal mine. So I went on BBC News, and I was taking a clearly antagonistic line. If it comes to the question of carbon taxes, I think we would absolutely need to go down that route. If the government suddenly said 'so sorry, we cannot go into the aspect of cross border carbon taxes', which is fundamental if you're going to have to deal with climate change, I think I would then stand up. Now, luckily, I am the ambassador for the Conservative Environment Network, who support all these sorts of things, which may be a little bit in advance of thinking."