Dangers of cosying up to the dragon

In their hunger for China’s tech billions, our gullible leaders risk leaving Britain horribly exposed, argues Cold War expert EDWARD LUCAS

MOST of my adult life has been spent in the Kremlin’s shadow. As a young foreign correspondent reporting for British newspapers from behind the Iron Curtain, I was arrested, beaten up and deported.

I stayed sceptical even when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. More than ten years ago I published The New Cold War — the first book sounding the alarm about the regime of exKGB agent turned president Vladimir Putin.

Today, I am far more worried by something else — China. And I believe Britain is becoming a pushover when it comes to standing up to the bullies of Beijing.

Take, for example, Theresa May’s controversial decision on Tuesday to over-rule Cabinet colleagues and accept technological input from the Chinese giant, Huawei, to build parts of our new 5G wireless communication system — the heart of the next industrial revolution.

Mrs May appeared to ignore warnings from five senior ministers and from U.S. intelligence experts that this poses a risk to national security because of Huawei’s alleged ties to a regime that Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has previously described as sometimes malign.

Bleak

Of course, the PM faced a bleak choice. Without access to Chinese high technology, and to that country’s vast markets and investment, we risk losing our competitiveness.

Yet an ever-closer economic partnership with China comes at a high cost — not only to our security, but also to our allies.

Indeed, the rising tide of Chinese influence is endangering Britain’s ‘Special Relationship’ with the U.S. — the foundation of our country’s security, forged during World War II.

The Trump administration, alarmed by China’s aggressive behaviour on many fronts, has warned that if we let Chinese technology into our core communications systems, it will stop sharing top-secret intelligence material.

It has banned Huawei from its own government networks and has demanded its partners (Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance do the same. Australia and New Zealand have barred Huawei from supplying key elements of their telecommunications infrastructure, while Canada is reviewing its position.

The temptation to ignore the security concerns is huge.

The much- talked- about ‘Internet of Things’ — devices connected by superfast 5G next-generation technology — will transform our lives. Machines will communicate with each other in transport, work and the home.

Life will — we are told — become easier, better and greener, the world is rushing headlong into this revolution — and Huawei technology is at the heart of it.

The company’s founder served in the Chinese military and few doubt its close ties to the all-powerful Communist Party, despite Huawei’s denials that it has any connection to the Chinese government. In China’s totalitarian system, every company — and, indeed, every citizen — must by law help the state security authorities on demand, in secret.

So should China’s spymasters decide at some future date that they want to use technology sold to foreigners for espionage or sabotage, Huawei and other companies will have no choice but to comply.

And if Britain’s central nervous system runs on technology ultimately controlled by party bosses in Beijing, what price our privacy — and our safety?

The answer so far has been to set up a special unit staffed by experts from GCHQ, our electronic spy agency, to scrutinise Huawei software and hardware. Its verdict is that the risk can be ‘ mitigated’. If the bits and bytes flowing across the networks are encrypted, then it hardly matters who makes the switches, radio masts, antennae and other ‘non-core’ hardware and infrastructure, which is what the Government has agreed to.

The boffins of GCHQ have not yet discovered any secret ‘flaws’ in Huawei products. In fact, their real worry is sloppiness. Like many other tech giants, Huawei has put innovation, low cost and convenience ahead of reliability. But this is not to say we should not be permanently vigilant.

For most cyber- security experts, Huawei is not the chief worry. Far greater concerns surround China’s state- sponsored hackers, who can steal huge quantities of personal data from badly run commercial and government databases here and elsewhere.

Sabotage

The scope for sabotage attacks is also huge, and extends way beyond Huawei.

The head of GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, this week warned of the ‘ unprecedented’ scale of cyber-threats that are threatening the British way of life.

Yes, we need to future-proof our telecommunications systems, but we also need to make our critical infrastructure — such as banking, energy, health, transport and retail systems — far more resilient, regardless of what technology is used.

We also need to show that we are willing to stand up to China on other issues, too: such as the regime’s desire to curb all foreign criticism of its xenophobic and brutal system.

We have been scandalously silent over the inhuman treatment of Muslims in Western China, incarcerated in their millions in re- education camps.

No British government politician will meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, for fear of offending Beijing.

Ministers collude in the diplomatic boycott of Taiwan, a doughty democracy that faces constant, vindictive pressure from mainland China.

The shameful betrayal of the people of Hong Kong is another dark stain — and another sign of China’s growing influence. This week, the law professor Benny Tai was jailed for 16 months for demonstrating for democracy in the former British territory. Predictably, there was not a squeak of protest from our Government.

Instead, Chancellor Philip Hammond will be one of many Western leaders in Beijing at a meeting of China’s Belt and Road Initiative this week, a multi-trillion-pound scheme unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 aimed at boosting transport and other connections between Africa, Europe and Asia.

It covers more than 70 countries and the aim is to reshape the way the world trades and travels — and to create a system in which all the best roads, railways and shipping lanes lead to Beijing.

Greed

All this is a stunning example of how, as the Russian state stagnates, China is becoming an economic, diplomatic and technological superpower. It is a world leader in drone technology, in artificial intelligence, in the new space race (China shocked the world when it landed a probe on the Moon in January) and — as we now see — in computer hardware for the next industrial revolution.

China exploits the opportunities presented by open societies such as ours — China Global Television Network, the regime’s propaganda outlet, operates freely from its offices in London — while keeping its system closed to outsiders.

Like Russia, China plays games of divide and rule in the West and exploits the same vulnerabilities — our greed, complacency, gullibility and slipshod cyber-security.

But Russia’s aim is only to sow chaos. The reach and clout of Beijing is far greater and its goals far more ambitious.

The Chinese leadership has a long-term plan, to win what it sees as the country’s rightful place as the world’s biggest and most powerful country.

Russia is mostly a nuisance. China is a menace — and it’s time to smell the dragon’s breath.