Time is running out for the West to constrain China’s global ambitions

We are stronger, richer and more powerful than China, but only united can we triumph

As President Trump tweets while America burns, Britain’s culture war intensifies as the pandemic goes on, and Europe turns a blind eye to Chinese aggression, we are missing an important truth. Since the end of the Cold War, the West has grown complacent and fundamentally unserious about the wider world.

Our failures are many. As the richest in our societies grew richer still, our governments failed to notice that globalisation was not working for everybody. Modern trade policies have lifted millions out of poverty in the developing world, but they have – along with new technologies and divisive domestic policies – destroyed manufacturing jobs, caused wage stagnation, and contributed to the relative decline of the West.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we expected elections and a privatisation programme to make Russia a liberal democracy. After 9/11 we started two catastrophic wars in the Middle East that weakened the West just as our great strategic rival, China, started to rise.

Since China rejoined the world trading system, on favourable terms, our governments have looked on as Beijing engaged in mass industrial espionage. We have watched the Chinese state abuse international institutions and laws. We stayed silent as Beijing eroded Hong Kong’s freedoms, threatened Taiwan, and incarcerated millions of its own citizens. We said nothing as China sought leverage by buying up American debt, British infrastructure, European companies and African minerals.

The Covid-19 crisis, and China’s response to it, might become a turning point. Ignoring diplomatic and economic pressure from Beijing, Australia has led calls for an inquiry into the origins of the virus. France has renewed arms sales to Taiwan. After China imposed its security law on Hong Kong, breaching its international treaty obligations, Washington removed the city’s special trading status. Britain has offered new visa rights to British Nationals Overseas in Hong Kong. And together with America, Canada and Australia, Britain is taking a more coordinated approach to this latest outrage.

But if you expect a new and strategic Western foreign policy, do not hold your breath. The European Union was given the chance to associate itself with the Hong Kong statement issued by Britain, America, Canada and Australia, but declined, expressing only “grave concern”. At a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Sweden alone proposed trade sanctions against China, while Josep Borrell, the EU’S foreign affairs high representative, made clear that China’s actions would not affect investment deals. The planned Eu/china summit, due this September, will still go ahead.

As ever, German economic interests weigh heavily in the EU’S calculation. China has become a significant export market for German manufactured goods, while Chinese investment in the poorest regions of Europe has partly compensated for the lack of fiscal transfers within the Eurozone. Angela Merkel says the EU has a “great strategic interest” in its relations with Beijing, explaining that “we Europeans need to recognise the decisiveness with which China will claim a leading position” in the world.

Washington takes a harder line, but its policy is neither serious nor strategic. President Trump was right to call out China’s manipulation of the World Health Organisation, but simply defunding it was an abdication of leadership, a gift to Beijing, and a signal that America is an erratic power, not a steadfast ally. Trump was right, too, about the need to confront China for its abuse of the world’s trade system. But undermining the World Trade Organisation without promoting an alternative policy reduces Western prosperity and power.

As China grows more assertive and aggressive, the world needs a new Western alliance. But for that to emerge, we will need a shared understanding of the Chinese threat, intelligent American leadership, and a strategic common policy.

We should not seek the impoverishment of China, but neither should we expose ourselves, or our allies, to the dangers of economic dependence on Beijing. We should not seek confrontation with China, but we should demonstrate our ability to defend ourselves and our allies against industrial espionage, cyber-attacks and military action.

Together, we are stronger and more prosperous than China and stand for values far more appealing to much of the rest of the world. Defeatists talk in trembling tones about the $1 trillion

China will spend over 10 years around the world as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. But last year alone, the mainly Western countries on the Development Assistance Committee spent $155 billion on international development. Add funding from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and Western spending in the developing world far surpasses that of China.

We need to make sure that this spending brings greater geopolitical influence than it does today. We need Europe to stop freeloading and start investing properly in its military and security capabilities. We need to avoid becoming bogged down in Middle Eastern conflagrations, and find a way of normalising relations with Russia, so we can focus on China.

We must give the world the truth about Covid-19 by securing an independent inquiry into its origins. We should build alliances with the likes of India, Japan and South Korea, who are as concerned about China as we should be. We ought to reform international institutions, giving rising powers, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia and Mexico, a stronger – and likely sinosceptic – global voice.

We should create new institutions to coordinate this new alliance, and allow the democracies to regulate cyberspace and artificial intelligence. If existing institutions, like the WTO, are failing, they must be reformed or replaced. If we fall behind China in telecommunications capabilities, we need to cooperate and win the race for the West.

For this really is a race. China is as serious about its pursuit of global power as we in the West have been unserious in response. But we are still rich, powerful and strong, and it is not yet too late to change.