Tag Archives: liberal democrat foreign policy

Do the Liberal Democrats know where Shenzhen is? And why it matters

By Alex Church | Sun 9th October 2016 - 8:59 am

Have you seen Gary Johnson forgetting ‘what’ Aleppo is? If not I’d recommend it. His baffled expression is hilarious.

But when you have finished chuckling, may I ask you a question? Where is Shenzhen?

My guess is most of you are now stumped. I only know because I once had to catch a train from Shenzhen station. Which is embarrassing because by one definition it is the 8^thlargest city in the world. It is adjacent to but several times the size of Hong Kong. Which, remarkably, is no longer among the twenty largest Chinese cities. And China is an enormous country in an enormous region:

Credit: Redditor valeriepieris

Despite this the last Liberal Democrat manifesto includes more references to Israel – which has 0.001% of the world’s population – than to all the countries in the Asia-Pacific combined. And they are only mentioned in the context of advocating EU membership. There are (or have been) groups declaring themselves to be “the Liberal Democrat Friends…” There are the Chinese Liberal Democrats but they exist “to promote closer links between the Party and the Chinese and South East Asian community in the UK.” of Israel, Palestine, Kashmir, India and Turkey but not of China, Indonesia or Vietnam. Basically, if a Lib Dem says they care about foreign policy that usually means they are interested in Europe or the parts of the Islamic world somewhat adjacent to it.