SIPA held the fifth Friday Event for the spring semester of 2022 on Friday, May 27th. Mr. Thomas Crook was invited to deliver a talk on the topic of “The UK and the World: Contemporary British Foreign Relations with Asia, Europe and Beyond”.

Mr. Thomas Crook started with an important introduction about UK’s foreign relations. After that he explained the What is the contemporary British diplomatic foreign policy toward China, then he moved on to the role of British political parties in shaping their diplomacy and foreign policy.

The topic of the event was interesting and brief but contains a lot of important and interesting information, which created a great resonance from the audience. More than 50 students attended the session, which lasted for one hour, and many questions were asked, both form Dr. Yan Zhen and students, which were discussed by Mr. Thomas and Dr. Alex with the utmost patience and professionalism.

Mr. Thomas Crook is a senior Treasury adviser and policy and strategy lead at a research unit in UK Parliament. He has previously worked in corporate intelligence, leading a Chinese language investigations team at KPMG in London, and has diplomatic experience from his time working at the EU's embassy in Beijing. Besides his work in Westminster, Thomas is a doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge (Institute for Manufacturing). He holds an MPhil from Oxford University and an MA from Peking University (北大). He has also been a lecturer in economic policy for the Stanford University in Oxford programme.