Chen Zhimin hosting a seminar on "BRICS cooperation and global governance" at Fudan University on July 17

Professor Chen Zhimin is a noted scholar in the field of international relations and European studies. He serves as the dean of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University. He has taken additional posts as the vice-president of the China National Association for Interna­tional Studies, an edito­rial board member and adviser of some leading international academic journals, including the Asia Europe Journal, and published several theses in the leading journals at home and abroad.

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Although most Scots ultimately elected not to secede from the Unit­ed Kingdom in a recent referendum, this moment has had an undeniable impact on the history of the com­monwealth and is bound to leave an impression on ordinary people there for years to come. CSST’s reporter interviewed Professor Chen Zhimin on the influences of the Scottish ref­erendum.

 

CSST: Although most Scottish chose to remain in the United Kingdom, by no means will they maintain the status quo. We have noticed that the U.K. government has promised to make concessions in both the realms of politics and economy in order to keep Scotland in the fold.

 

Chen Zhimin: It can be said that the failure of the Scottish referen­dum temporarily maintained the unification of the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom is no longer the same and neither is Scotland. Scotland will receive much more interior autonomy in the United Kingdom.

 

At the beginning when Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, promoted the Scottish referendum, the U.K. government had suppos­edly thought that the referendum wouldn’t gain support from the majority. What the U.K. government expected was that the secession of Scotland would be resolved once and for all through the referendum and there would be no need to transfer further power to Scotland and that the United Kingdom’s repu­tation would benefit from the action.

 

But under the leadership of Sal­mond, the number of people sup­porting the secession of Scotland had at one point exceeded that of the camp of people who were against the secession, which deeply troubled the U.K. government. In the end, Scotland did not split with the United Kingdom, but the Scottish secured a commitment to transfer power from the mainstream British political party. At the end of the ref­erendum, Prime Minister Cameron promised that an agreement trans­ferring powers of taxation, expendi­ture and welfare to Scotland should be reached before November and that legislation should be passed in January of the next year.

 

CSST: So does it mean that the threat of secession for the U.K. gov­ernment is not temporary, and it cannot rest easy?

 

Chen Zhimin: In this referendum, 55% of Scottish voters still chose to remain in the UK. It shows that in the minds of most Scots, Scottish identity and British identity can co­exist. There is not an inevitable con­flict between greater autonomy for Scotland and maintaining its place within the United Kingdom. Former Prime Minister Brown of British Labour Party is from Scotland, and he indicated that Scotland can gain the most benefit by sharing and cooperating with the United King­dom. The result of the referendum demonstrates that it reflects the mainstream opinion in Scotland.

 

But what cannot be neglected is that the national identity and lo­cal identity in Scotland have been enhanced through the referendum. Now that the referendum is over, the crisis of national secession in the United Kingdom has been put to rest in the short run, but the hazard still exists, and secessionists remain ada­mant.

 

CSST: What is the primary cause for growing support behind Scot­tish secession? Some people cite the complete decline of the United Kingdom after the World War II as the principle reason.

 

Chen Zhimin: The movement toward Scottish independence has been in resurgence since the 1970 as the result of both the decline of the United Kingdom’s interna­tional standing as well as prominent domestic political and economic conflicts. In 1973, the UK joined the European Community and had to cooperate with continental coun­tries of Europe. The sense of impe­rial pride has gone away forever. With regard to the development of domestic society and economy, the stagflation of the 1970s intensified problems of the United Kingdom’s domestic wealth distribution, es­pecially the distribution of regional benefits. In the 1980s, the Conser­vative Party’s economic liberaliza­tion reforms brought about overall economic growth in the United Kingdom. However, it led to grow­ing regional disparity and economic inequality, fostering general dissatis­faction among leftists in Scotland.

 

CSST: Will the Scottish referen­dum exert an effect on Wales and Northern Ireland?

 

Chen Zhimin: This possibility is really high. Like Scotland, both Wales and Northern Ireland have local parliaments, but their autonomous legislative power is much less than that of Scotland’s parliament. Once Scotland’s parliament obtains much greater legislative power, the asym­metry among Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland will increase. Under the shock of Scottish refer­endum, it will be a natural demand for Wales and Northern Ireland to follow Scotland’s step to strive for regional autonomy.

 

CSST: Besides Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland striving for greater regional autonomy, will the referendum exert a greater influ­ence on the British political system?

 

Chen Zhimin: I think that the Brit­ish political system will inevitably make a corresponding change. As the main body, England doesn’t have its own regional parliament and is directly governed by the Brit­ish Parliament and government. With the expansion of regional autonomous rights in other places, the envy of people in England be­comes increasingly intensified and they asked for resolution of the West Lothian question.

 

At the same time, Cameron prom­ised that the transfer of power to Scotland would be rapidly realized, and he asserted that the West Lo­thian question needs to be solved with a decisive solution. He indicated that people in England have three possible choices: to further reduce the number of members from Eng­land in the British Parliament; to forbid Scottish members in parlia­ment from voting for English affairs in the fields of Scotland received from the transfer of power, or to es­tablish England’s own parliament.

 

CSST: If the Scottish referen­dum was observed within the context of Europe as a whole, it would be much more meaning­ful and thought provoking. From Germany’s Bavaria, Italy’s Sar­dinia, France’s Corse, to Spain’s Catalonia, ghosts of secession are wandering in Europe. As we all know, European countries created a sample of regional integration by releasing partial sovereignty. So how should we understand these two seemingly contradictory trends between European integra­tion and the resurgence of nation­alism?

 

Chen Zhimin: With the con­tinuous development of today’s globalization and regionalization, decentralization has emerged ev­erywhere and the synchronous de­velopment between integration and localization has been taking shape. Europe is no exception. In the E.U., with the highest level of regional integration in the world, some member countries such as Belgium have accomplished the transforma­tion from unitary state to federal state; in other member countries, the transfer of power with differ­ent degrees has been achieved, forming a multi-level governance among different actors the local, the state and the European Union. The integration and localization seem to be mutually contradictory but actu­ally have internal logic. Integration stands for national upward delega­tion of authority, forming the au­thority in the regional level sharing security, development and identity with the state.

 

After the end of the Cold War, Western countries played a role in intensifying the secession progress of the Soviet and some of Central and Eastern Europe. Now, the se­cession movement has spread from non-E.U. countries to E.U. countries with an evolving tendency from localization to decentralization. I think that the EU integration makes the localization possible among member countries, but the development from localization to decentralization is just the product of the central and regional conflicts without control. Taking Scotland as an example, the expansion of seces­sionists demonstrates that Scottish identity, benefits and preferences are extremely distinguished with those of England and their expansion is the result of the United Kingdom’s ineffective political system.

 

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, No. 650, Sept. 24, 2014

                                                                                                                         Translated by Zhang Mengying

The Chinese link:

http://sscp.cssn.cn/xkpd/xhgc/201409/t20140924_1339465.html