A recent report by a Committee of the British Parliament has given scathing comments on the UK policy towards China and also questioned the measures it is adopting to scrutinise the Chinese companies in the UK.
The House of Commons’ Intelligence and Security Committee’s much-awaited report on China was tabled in the parliament on 13th July. The committee while accepting the difficulties to detect China’s influence and interference activities in the UK, also asks whether the government has been really looking to detect them? Questioning the government’s apathy or lack of will, the committee stated:
‘China’s size, ambition and capability have enabled it to successfully penetrate every sector of the UK’s economy.’
The committee further noted that though much has been talked about China’s interference, at the practical level the government still does not have a
comprehensive list of areas of sensitive UK research which need protecting. The nine-member committee began its inquiry in 2019 under the chairmanship of Sir Julian Lewis MP, and it critically questions the government’s efforts to secure its advances with China in academia, industry and technology, areas where the UK has easily accepted various tie-ups and Chinese funding without any routine diligence. The report further states that, ‘China targets the UK and its interests prolifically and aggressively, as it posses apparently the world’s largest intelligence network’.
The report further says that China’s ambitions to become the global technological and economic behemoth is not hidden, and in this endeavour it has became the ‘greatest threat to the UK’ targeting its elites and decision-makers, to acquire information and research using both covert and overt methods, to gain technological supremacy.
UK-China Relationship
In April last, a BBC report quoted Foreign Secretary James Cleverly calling for the UK to have a more constructive but robust relationship with China. He argued isolating China would be against the UK’s national interest.
Reportedly Mr Cleverly had said, “No significant global problem – from climate change to pandemic prevention, from economic stability to nuclear proliferation – can be solved without China.”
The foreign secretary dismissed calls from some senior Conservatives to take a strictly hardline approach against China and instead argued that the UK must engage with Beijing to tackle ‘humanity’s biggest problems’. “It would be clear and easy – and perhaps even satisfying – for me to declare some kind of new Cold War and say that our goal is to isolate China,” Mr Cleverly said, “It would be clear, it would be easy, it would be satisfying and it would be wrong. Because it would be a betrayal of our national interest and a wilful misunderstanding of the modern world.”
But he urged China to be transparent about its military expansion and accused Beijing of “carrying out the biggest military build-up in peacetime history”. The address also condemned Chinese repression against the Muslim minority Uyghurs in China – Beijing is accused of committing systematic human rights abuses against and detaining hundreds of thousands of in camps.
However, the foreign secretary’s comments are in complete contrast to what the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in his first foreign policy speech at the same venue, last year. Sunak had said the “golden-era” of relations with China was over, along with the “naive idea” that more trade with the West would lead to Chinese political reform. Instead, he had said the UK had to replace wishful thinking with “robust pragmatism”. But, in contrast the ISC Report finds the government wanting on all fronts to act against China in a proactive or focussed manner, instead it describes government’s attitude as being more obsequious.
Chinese businesses in the UK
The 207-page report, apart from probing UK’s national security issues also delved into the controversial role of Huawei in British telecoms infrastructure.
The UK’s relationship with China has deteriorated in recent years following controversies related to Huawei’s involvement in Britain’s 5G network, concerns over threats to civil liberties in the former British colony of Hong Kong, and the threat of espionage and pro-Chinese trade campaigns in the UK.
The report further said that though in previous years, the British intelligence apparatus focused its efforts on terrorism, but in doing so it failed to recognise that it had a responsibility for countering Chinese interference activity in Britain.
Short-termism still dominates the government’s thinking, the committee warned, as it urged ministers to think longer-term when developing security policy.
ISC Chairman Julian Lewis warned China “represents a risk on a pretty wide scale” for Britain, as Beijing “is increasingly thinking of a future in which it could be the world power.”
The report argues that Beijing’s ambition to become a technological and economic superpower, on which other countries are reliant, represents the greatest risk to the UK.
Government’s indifference
The ISC accuses the government of ignoring national security by welcoming Chinese investment in British tech and economy. It singles out the UK’s trade department, arguing it would be “unacceptable” for ministers to accept Chinese involvement in British critical national infrastructure, including the UK’s civil nuclear sector.
China has also stepped up its espionage efforts in Britain, the committee said, with civil intelligence officers “prolifically and aggressively” collecting human intelligence, and carrying out “highly capable and increasingly sophisticated” cyber-espionage.
Speaking at the launch of the report in London, Lewis conceded, “there is now some movement and the security aspects appear to be beginning to be taken more seriously,” by the government. Noting some recent legislation giving powers to the ministers to block investment decisions if they threatened national security.
All said and done, the ISC Report reflects the genuflecting of the British government towards China, in practically every sphere of business, from tourism to education, where Chinese travellers and students are given British Visa at nominal cost, Chinese investment and startups are given more preferential terms and indeed everything related to China is treated on different terms than other countries.
If the UK wants to maintain its pre-eminence in the global politics, then it on its own and along with its other western allies will have to tackle China at a much larger and strategic level.