Stand up to China’s bullying, West told

DIPLOMACY: Western countries need to show greater solidarity in the face of unacceptable bullying by China, former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill has warned.

Lord Sedwill, who was also the national security adviser, said a “ruthless” China was able to “pick off” individual countries that tried to challenge it.

WESTERN COUNTRIES need to show greater solidarity in the face of “unacceptable” bullying by China, the former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill has warned.

Lord Sedwill, who was also the national security adviser, said a lack of unity among Western allies meant a “ruthless” China was able to “pick off ” individual countries which tried to challenge it.

He called for a united front to “contest, contain (and) where necessary confront” Chinese behaviour when it broke international norms.

His comments come after Boris Johnson was criticised by some senior Tories for calling for deeper trading ties with Beijing in the Government’s Integrated Review of foreign and defence policy. Giving evidence to the Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, Lord Sedwill acknowledged China was one of the “engines of global” growth while its co-operation was also essential on issues like climate change.

At the same time, he said it was important to avoid the so-called “Thucydides trap” where an established power like the US feels threatened by the rise of a rival like China leading to conflict.

“That is a dangerous place for the world to get to,” he said.

However he said the “authoritarian” nature of the communist regime and its strengthening ties with countries like Russia were a “very severe constraint” on the UK’s ability to work with it.

“Under this president (Xi Jinping) China is much more aggressive in its region.

“We have seen the crackdown in Hong Kong, the appalling treat of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, and the deliberate expansionist agenda of the Belt and Road,” he said.

“If we are going to push back effectively against those parts of Chinese behaviour that are unacceptable, whether domestic or international, we need to do so with a sense of common purpose across the Western alliance and that has been sadly lacking over the past few years,” he said.

“That is partly why China has been able to advance a more assertive agenda and indeed pick off or seek to bully the individual nations.”

Lord Sedwill said that while countries like the UK and US had adopted a more “robust” approach in recent years, other allies were yet to do so.

He highlighted the response when China imposed economic sanctions on Australia after it called for the World Health Organisation to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic

“To be candid they didn’t get much more than rhetorical support from elsewhere around the world,” he said.

“Some other Western countries will seek opportunity if they see one of their friendly allied but nevertheless competitors having a setback in their relationship with China.

“The absolute key to this is a sense of common purpose among the West.”

The news comes as China accused a scholar and outspoken critic of its policies toward Muslim minorities of fabricating charges that have helped bring sanctions against Chinese officials and companies operating in the Xinjiang region.

The ruling Communist Party’s deputy head of propaganda, Xu Guixiang, made the accusations against Adrian Zenz in the latest of a series of news conferences aimed at deflecting criticism over China’s detention of more than one million Uighurs and other Muslims in reeducation camps.

The key to this is a sense of common purpose among the West. Former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill.