5 July 1997
It is 6pm and a group of young men and women are filing in orderly fashion into one of Oxford’s more discreet academic buildings for a lecture on the global politics of environment by a former UK ambassador to the UN.
Well groomed, well dressed, and soft spoken, these students from around the world cut a very different image to those who have been crowding into the university’s most popular pub, The King’s Arms, to celebrate the end of their finals.
For these are no ordinary students. They are young diplomats from around the world – or “members” as they and their tutors like to refer to each other – of the Foreign Service Programme (FSP), courtesy of their own governments and the UK’s Foreign Office.
The Programme has its roots in Britain’s imperialist tradition and has, over the years, developed as one of the more subtle and less trumpeted attempts by Her Majesty’s Government to assure itself of a measure of continuing global influence.
Its earliest precursor was a specialist programme for new entrants to the Indian Civil Service, promoted in the late 19th century by Benjamin Jowett, a senior tutor who became Master of Balliol College – “To inoculate the world with Balliol,” pledged Jowett.
With the fall of Empire, an Overseas Service Course was adapted to train members of Commonwealth states achieving independence.
In more recent years, a renamed FSP has extended its intake of diplomats to practically any country in the world.
A marketing campaign aimed at governments able to finance their own has drawn students from the Middle East and Latin America, and to a lesser extent Asia, plus the former Communist countries. With the exception of Austria, European countries choose to train their own diplomats.
A group of Oxford academics is responsible for three main areas of study – international trade and finance, international economics and finance, and international law. But the administrative spirit of the foreign office is stamped all over the fourth course, unsurprisingly titled “diplomacy”.
The man entrusted with teaching diplomatic skills is Sir Robin Fearn, who successfully applied for the job of programme director last year following his retirement from the Foreign Office.
“Continuity with change” is how Sir Robin describes his latest challenge.
In the reassuring environment of the senior common room of his old Oxford college, Sir Robin seemed coolly unruffled by some of the realities of modern times: the Chinese back in Hong Kong, Labour’s foreign minister talking of the need to think of human rights first.
He performed his national service in the Intelligence Corps before joining the diplomatic ladder. Having served Queen and Country around the world for more than 30 years – from Islamabad to the Falklands and most recently as ambassador to Madrid – Sir Robin remains firmly cast in the Jowett mould, convinced that British influence can still extend universally, thanks to the spirit England’s most eminent university.
So how does academic excellence apply to teaching foreign diplomats?
“What I am trying to do with these people is to make them think, have ideas, make their own judgments, and argue them convincingly. I want them articulate, argumentative, persuasive, treat facts not as knowledge but as the basis for creating opinions,” Sir Robin enthused.
Sensitive to any charge that he is engaged in propaganda, Sir Robin insists that the prime objective of the programme is universal – although “propagandising Britain is one of the elements”.
“Let’s not get too focused on selling Britain. The main object is to give those on the course a global understanding of the complexities of the world, and better to understand the techniques of diplomacy,” says Sir Robin.
“We are always oversubscribed, and that speaks for the reputation of the programme and the value that foreign ministries around the world attach to it. It’s significant that governments are prepared to sacrifice time and money on some of their diplomats to come here for a year.”
Or it could be that some “diplomats” have hit on a convenient way of getting themselves a quick – and free – Oxford education (75% of the students are funded by Foreign Office scholarships).
The programme organisers make much of the global network of “old boys and girls” developed over the years.
Less explicit is the extent to which some former members may also become unofficial “moles” that might, if called upon, repay a favour or two to the local UK mission.
Thus the official programme brochure records the following innocuous story: “A senior former member of the programme tells of how he went into a bilateral conference to negotiate a knotty problem and noticed, to his pleasure and relief, that his opposite number was sporting the same distinctive FSP tie.”
It concludes, without even a hint of self-mockery: “The meeting was over in an unexpectedly short time. The non-Oxford diplomats on both sides are said to be still puzzled by how quickly agreement was reached on such an apparent sticking point.”
The record of members, once they leave the cosy environment of Oxford to return to their own countries, is mixed: several old boys promoted to ambassadorships in countries of dubious democratic credentials, and one old girl – Benazir Bhutto – to a presidency.
As for Zheng Xiaosong, this year’s member from China, he quit well before the programme’s end. He had been appointed to his country’s new administration in Hong Kong.
The remaining members on this year’s course certainly seemed in convivial mood as their joined Sir Robin and me for their final meal together.
It was hard to find any among them prepared to utter a word of criticism of the programme itself. But they were, after all, trained diplomats.
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