Britain can’t keep both China and the US happy
The UK would be foolish to underestimate just how worried the White House is about Beijing’s intentions
If Donald Trump thought Boris Johnson’s arrival at Downing Street would herald a new era in the transatlantic relationship, he might need to think again after the Prime Minister’s dismissive attitude towards Washington over the Huawei issue.
Mr Trump makes no secret of his personal admiration for Mr Johnson. It was only last week that the president vouchsafed the view that Mr Johnson was a “wonderful” Prime Minister, even though, at the time Mr Trump was speaking at Davos, the British Government was pressing ahead with its plans to target US tech giants with a 2 per cent tax on their digital activities.
Nor has Mr Johnson’s stance on Iran been particularly helpful for the Trump administration. While the White House is keen for its key European ally to support its approach of applying “maximum pressure” against the ayatollahs, Mr Johnson’s more nuanced position, whereby he acknowledges the Iran nuclear deal is flawed but insists it is the best way to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal, is hardly an unequivocal declaration of support for the president’s position.
It is not all in one direction: Mr Trump said yesterday that the Prime Minister had offered to help with his Israel-palestine peace proposal. But fresh questions will be raised in Washington about the strength of Mr Johnson’s commitment to the transatlantic relationship following yesterday’s announcement of the Government’s convoluted position on Huawei, where the Chinese telecoms giant is to be allowed limited access to Britain’s new 5G telecoms network.
Mr Trump could not have made his position clearer, calling Mr Johnson at the weekend to express his opposition to Huawei’s involvement in a vital area of Britain’s national security infrastructure. This sentiment is likely to be reinforced by Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, when he arrives in Britain today to raise the issue with our Government.
There was almost a sense of incredulity among senior US administration officials as the details of Mr Johnson’s Huawei fudge became public following yesterday’s meeting of the National Security Council.
Referring to the elite Five Eyes intelligence-gathering network that Britain has shared with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand since the end of the Second World War, a senior administration official commented: “It is utter madness for Britain to risk its continued membership of the Five Eyes with this decision. By failing to acknowledge the all-pervasive role the Chinese Communist Party plays in China’s business dealings with the outside world, Britain is deliberately jeopardising the long-term security of its citizens.”
This is patently not the view of Britain’s intelligence community, the driving force behind yesterday’s announcement, which insists it can prevent any attempt by Beijing to manipulate the 5G network to its advantage. Consequently, we now find ourselves in the position where the Prime Minister’s oft-repeated mantra that he likes to have his cake and eat it is not just limited to Brexit.
Even so, by focusing so narrowly on the security dimensions of involving Huawei in the construction of 5G, the Government is in danger of ignoring the broader strategic implications, especially in terms of our future relationship with Washington.
It is unlikely that the Americans will follow through on their threats to end Britain’s participation in Five Eyes, as such a move could have the same potentially disastrous consequences for America as it would for Britain.
Yet, as Britain ponders its post-brexit global destiny, causing the US needless offence seems a strange approach to building a stronger and better Britain freed from the shackles of the EU.
The Trump administration might come across as bullying. But at least it operates on the basis of democratic principles, which is more than can be said for the communist autocracy in Beijing, whose true attitude towards democratic values can be seen in its support for the brutal suppression of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Moreover, by giving Huawei the all-clear to continue its involvement in 5G, the Government has misjudged the strength of feeling in Washington about the scale of the threat China poses to the survival of the Western alliance.
US concerns about China are not confined to its technological superiority in fields like telecoms. The Trump administration, where officials estimate they spend around 80 per cent of their time focusing on China, regards Beijing as posing a direct threat to the survival of the Western democracies, and is determined that Washington and its allies take a far firmer line in curbing Chinese interference in their affairs. This means that, for countries like Britain, it will increasingly come down to having to make a choice between which of the world’s leading powers, the US or China, best serves their interests.
Mr Johnson clearly hopes, as he has demonstrated with Huawei, that Britain is best served by trying to keep both sides happy. This approach is naive in the extreme, for when it comes to choosing between Washington and Beijing, it is only America that is interested in defending the democratic values of the free world.