Covid-19 is a wake-up call: we must reset our relationship with China

The so-called ‘golden era’ was a sham. The West needs to hold Beijing to account and defend itself

Back in the days of the David Cameron government, senior Cabinet ministers were presented with the concerns of the intelligence agencies about China. Beijing would spy on Britain, they warned, and steal our military and commercial secrets. And the Chinese would use their economic power to exert geopolitical pressure on us.

The ministers listened politely, but failed to heed the warning. As one senior attendee summed up: “China is going to do all this anyway. We might as well take their money.” And so a cynical bargain was struck. Britain would win foreign investment in its economy, but place itself at the mercy of a brutal and autocratic government. The “golden era” of relations between the two countries – as Beijing insisted on calling it – was under way.

Even its advocates called the policy “Operation Kowtow”. But the Treasury got what it wanted, and the investment kept coming. Trade between Britain and China more than doubled in a decade, while last year alone China invested more than $20 billion (£16 billion) in Britain. From the new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point to the roll-out of 5G, Chinese investors and companies have been at the heart of our most important recent infrastructure programmes.

And yet the decision to go “all in” with China was not only a matter of finance. Understanding that this would be “the Asian century”, Mr Cameron’s chancellor, George Osborne, decided that Britain should make itself China’s best friend in the West. Just as Harold Macmillan had perceived that, as British power declined, we should play Athens to America’s Rome, Mr Osborne thought he could pull off a geopolitical pivot that would strengthen Britain for decades to come.

This judgment – powered by a curious mix of arrogance, naivety and cynicism – has been proved foolish. Chinese investment has come with strings attached. It has bought British silence as China abrogates its treaty responsibilities in Hong Kong and incarcerates one million Uighurs. British ministers refuse to meet the Dalai Lama and, like other Western countries, refuse to recognise the independence of Taiwan.

China’s Hinkley deal grants its General Nuclear Power Group a contractual right to “progressive entry” into Britain’s nuclear energy facilities: after Hinkley the Chinese will gain a deepening operational role at Sizewell and Bradwell. With 5G, inviting Huawei into our telecoms infrastructure risks industrial espionage and other security threats. And the decision to go with Huawei, just like Britain’s choice to become a founder member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, has alienated our security partners.

So there are several good reasons why we cannot go “all in” with China. It is the principal strategic rival of the United States, our most important ally. It is surely now obvious that China is also a strategic rival to the

West as a whole. It is an autocratic and oppressive state, with wildly different values and interests to our own. Its policy towards Asia, Africa and elsewhere is inevitably imperialistic. And its modus operandi – setting debt traps for countries to gain leverage over them and engaging in mass industrial espionage – is a danger to our interests and those of our allies.

Already, the leverage we have allowed China means British ministers and officials come under pressure to respect Beijing’s wishes in forums such as the United Nations. And we are not alone. China seeks to control the votes and voices of countries in all the world’s institutions. Most notably, given recent events, it has successfully manipulated the World Health Organisation.

The pandemic, for anybody still in denial about China, ought to be a wake-up call. Since 2002, virologists have warned that the viruses in horseshoe bats, and the Chinese custom of eating exotic mammals and using them for traditional medicines, was “a time bomb” for the world’s health. Yet China did nothing to limit the danger. When the virus emerged, it silenced the medics who tried to blow the whistle. It allowed millions of people to leave Wuhan, making the virus an international danger.

It left other countries guessing the characteristics of Covid-19. Now it is using the crisis to round up democracy activists in Hong Kong, claim the coronavirus began in America, and attack Britain for its “poor epidemic control”.

This is the reality of the “golden era”, and if some good can come of this appalling crisis, we need to reset our relationship with China. Sceptics will say there is little we can do. But this is nonsense: as leaders of other Western countries, including the French

President Emmanuel Macron, have said, there is plenty that can be done.

We can start by reversing the decision to allow Huawei to run parts of our 5G network, and work with allied governments to strengthen Western telecoms capabilities. We should restrict the role of Chinese companies in our critical national infrastructure. We must build greater resilience and more state capacity to protect us from danger. In particular, the coming defence review should reflect China’s threat to our interests.

We should lead the reform of international institutions, giving the world’s growing powers, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia and Mexico, the global voice they deserve. We should lead the creation of new global bodies to ensure peaceful economic competition between East and West. And we should help to establish a new forum in which democratic governments can work together to regulate cyberspace and technologies like artificial intelligence.

We should insist on an independent international investigation into Covid-19, so the world can learn the truth. We should build new alliances with countries – such as Japan and South Korea – that share our scepticism about China. And we should follow Tokyo’s lead and provide financial assistance for companies bringing production and assembly work back home, or in some cases to other low-cost countries such as Malaysia, Poland and Portugal.

When the worst of the pandemic passes, the sham of the “golden era” must give way to reality. We must be more assertive in our defence, and China must be made accountable to the world.