Now is the time for us to beat back China and renew the international order

With Beijing’s reputation and economy in tatters, Mr Johnson is in the best position to face it down

The website of the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge, says this: “Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China since 1978, [China] has experienced an extraordinary transformation under the policy of ‘Reform and Opening Up’. China’s national rejuvenation is returning the country to the position within the global political economy that it occupied before the 19th century.”

Odd words for an academic project in a great university. They read more like propaganda than independent scholarship. Imagine if there were a “Britain Centre” in a Beijing university whose website said: “Under the leadership of the Conservative Party since 1979, Britain has experienced an extraordinary transformation…” Imagine the ( justified) howls about its bias. I shall return to the embarrassing readiness of British institutions and individuals to take the Chinese Communist Party at its own valuation, but first let us look at Jesus College’s assertion in the light of Covid-19.

In a sense, its historical summary is correct. Ever since Deng Xiaoping threw off the extremes of Maoism in 1978, China has pursued a policy of learning from Western capitalism how to get rich. On the whole, the West welcomed this, believing China would converge with us. To some extent, despite the massacres in Tiananmen Square in 1989, it did.

In 2012, however, Xi Jinping came to power, reversed the more collegiate approach to leadership and reasserted the absolute dominance of the Communist Party, of which he is general secretary. He also became the President of China, and got rid of term limits. His personality cult started to produce interminable books of “Xi Jinping Thought” which are supposed to guide the nation. He crushed dissidents and jailed party rivals.

Deng Xiaoping’s approach was that China should keep its head below the parapet, creeping up on the West rather than challenging it. Xi broke this rule. Conspicuous and aggressive, China’s diplomats became styled as “Wolf Warriors” by Xi supporters. He boasted of China’s ambitious 2030 programme for 5G and of his One Belt, One Road initiative for the economic (and therefore political) dominance of Eurasia and Africa. He showed hubris.

The world began to notice. It came to see China less as a friendly neighbour, and more as a threat and – in areas such as intellectual property and cybersecurity – a thief. The most important objector was Donald Trump, who challenged China’s power-grab and correctly calculated that it could not afford to fight America to the death on trade. This weakened Xi (though it may well have weakened America too).

Next, in March 2019, began the demonstrations in Hong Kong. Their suppression reminded the world of the Chinese Communist Party’s violent hatred of democracy. The Hong Kong protests had an even more damaging effect for Xi at home. He had declared that the “problem” of Taiwan could not be left to future generations. His enticement to Taiwan to end the split with mainland China was that it could become like Hong Kong – benefiting from the “One Country: Two Systems” concept negotiated with Britain. But events in Hong Kong showed that China does not respect One Country: Two Systems. So, Taiwan has turned against reunification. Xi has lost face at home. His only remaining way to get Taiwan back is to invade. Will he dare?

Then came the virus. Xi’s suppression of the facts about the Wuhan outbreak created the biggest explosion of scorn on Chinese social media ever known, and the explosion of the disease itself. After quite a long disappearance in January, he came roaring back, with propaganda claims that China was saving the world and the US Army had concocted the virus anyway. But the virus spread across the planet: the planet knows where it came from. We can now see that the secrecy, mendacity and incompetence of the Chinese Communist Party have made the world ill. This is a literal truth, and also a metaphor for the current role of such a power in the world order.

So what on earth (earth is the right word, because it matters everywhere) are we to do about it? It seems worth pointing out, lest we be ruled by fear alone, that what has happened is as great a disaster for China as for us. China’s “national rejuvenation”

(© Jesus College), has, in economic terms, halted, as yesterday’s GNP figure proved. In reputational terms, it has collapsed.

It was only when Russia tried to poison the Skripals that we woke up to exactly how appallingly Vladimir Putin was behaving. The Chinese Communist Party has infected hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. We must believe that this was not deliberate, but we can suggest that, without its behaviour, it would not have happened.

All the elements China had to learn from us to achieve economic success – laws of contract, media accountability, Western-style higher education, privacy and property rights, a liberal trading order – have been deeply damaged by a ruthless, dishonest state intervention that has led to mass death.

Who now, in Western business, academia, media etc will feel easy about selling China bits of the action? Even greedy Western universities will surely notice that uncritical acceptance of Chinese money threatens their academic standing. Incredibly, as late as this week, figures including Lord Browne of Madingley (ex-bp boss) and Sir Andrew Cahn (ex-uk Trade and Investment chief executive) welcomed Sir Mike Rake (ex-bt boss) as he joined them – all three, by the way, fervent Remainers – on the board of Huawei UK. One savours Lord Browne’s choice of phrase as he welcomed Sir Mike: “The current global crisis has demonstrated the importance of world-leading connectivity.” Yes, but perhaps not quite in the way he means.

The West’s natural reaction might understandably be Trumpian. The

President has an imminent election to win. Anti-china feeling in the United States is fiercer than it has ever been, so he is more than happy to own it. He is not very good at governing, but he is excellent at campaigning, and that is what he is doing right now.

Dare one suggest, however, that this may not be the best way to go? Take the World Health Organisation (WHO). Mr Trump is right that its deference to China made it criminally slow to warn of the virus. Its director-general is a pliant former Ethiopian health minister whose country is close to Beijing. But is it sensible suddenly to pull US funding, leaving China to fill the gap? Better, surely, for the US to warn the WHO that it will lose the money unless it shapes up, and insist on putting in proper doctors.

Better, more generally, to explain to the Chinese party leaders – who are not, whatever else may be said about them, stupid – that they have to rebuild trust all over again if they are to reclaim the pre-19th-century “position within the global political economy” of which the Jesus College website boasts. Is it not better, in short, for the West to use the current weaknesses of the international order to lead the reshaping of that order rather than to retreat into isolation?

Funnily enough, I can see only one national leader who is committed to a rules-based order but untainted by the failings of the present one. He runs a country with a strong tradition in such matters. Currently, he is recuperating at Chequers.