Bullying Xi, predatory Trump: where does Britain turn in a divided world?
Life after divorce can be difficult. Having cut ties with the EU, its partner of 47 years, Britain’s new-minted relationship with China is in deep water. Tapping into Beijing’s enormous economic power is vital to Brexit’s success. But the relationship has soured. The spark has gone. The relatives don’t approve.
Harsh words are flying. Boris Johnson is accused of two-timing China by succumbing to American pressure to break it off and backing Donald Trump’s electorally driven “new cold war”. Johnson would surely rather have it both ways. But he knows a show of defiance could wreck his other Brexit passion: a spanking new trade deal with the US.
What to do? Caught in this unlovely triangle, senior government officials are hedging their bets. On the face of it, they satisfied an importunate US last week by banning the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei from doing business in Britain.
But as the Observer reports today, they have also privately indicated to Huawei that “geopolitics” is to blame and the decision may be reversible.
What does this actually mean? It means that while noisily collecting US brownie points, Britain is simultaneously telling the Chinese, sotto voce, that Trump is the problem. If Joe Biden replaces him in January, it’s suggested, Britain would anticipate greater American flexibility – and a possible return to business as usual.
Complicated? Yes. Geopolitics always is. Those claiming Brexit is “done” ignore such ongoing strategic ramifications in an era of shifting power balances. Brexit’s big idea was that “global Britain” could chart its own independent, buccaneering course, trading freely with the world. Yet the emerging picture is of a diplomatically isolated, vulnerable country frantically juggling the conflicting demands of bigger players. Some say the curse of Brexit is upon us. Far from taking back control, Britain, further weakened by Covid-19, risks losing it altogether.
It could be argued that the UK has been unlucky in its timing. The 2016 Brexit referendum and ensuing debate coincided with the unexpected advent of Trump and his xenophobic, unilateralist, divisive brand of “America First” nationalism – and to some extent echoed it.
Trump can be seen as an aberration. But his policies have undermined, perhaps permanently, the international rules-based political, economic and security order that Britain helped create and over which it has exerted disproportionate influence since 1945.
Trump’s disdain for shared western democratic values, alliances and laws has been deeply destabilising for the UK’s traditional world view. This has placed US reliability in doubt and raised profound questions about the “special relationship” – Britain’s geopolitical bedrock.
At the same time Xi Jinping, who effectively awarded himself power for life in 2017, was moving China inexorably away from the “peaceful rise” stratagems of his presidential predecessors. Instead, he espoused an expansionist, more assertive international posture.
This evolution may be seen in China’s illegal seizure of control of the South China Sea, its escalating intimidation of Taiwan, its readiness to confront neighbours such as India, its online censorship, cyber-spying and indifference to criticism of abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
Xi would probably have made the shift sooner or later. But it seems to have been accelerated by Trump’s 2017 designation of China as a “strategic competitor” and “economic aggressor”. Trump has since made his feelings known through protectionist tariffs, trade sanctions and his encouragement of sinophobia as a way of attacking Biden.
As rivalry intensified, Xi unleashed a fierce counter-offensive by so-called “wolf warrior” diplomats tasked with robustly projecting Chinese power. The UK is among those on the receiving end – the frequent target of insulting remarks by China’s combative London ambassador, Liu Xiaoming.
Two recent developments – Xi’s security crackdown in Hong Kong and the culmination of US pressure on its allies to boycott Huawei – have plunged Britain into the centre of this geopolitical maelstrom.
Yet its Janusian dilemma is not simply the product of bad luck. Problematic British economic and technological dependence on China is not a new phenomenon. But it is one that was long ignored out of political expediency and shortsightedness.
Tory Brexiters who now portray Chinese companies as a dire security risk are the very same people who, when it suited them, painted a cosy picture of lucrative collaboration.
Tories thought they were being clever by wooing Xi with a 2015 state visit and talk of a golden era, thereby showing a distant Barack Obama that Britain had strategic choices. There was little talk then of a Chinese threat. But David Cameron and George Osborne were geopolitical amateurs. Now, predictably, it’s all gone pear-shaped.
What’s left is a post-Brexit UK global strategy that largely boils down to a risky gamble on expanding relationships with two superpowers that don’t rate or respect Britain and which are fiercely at odds with each other. Johnson is reduced to playing piggy in the middle.
How does Britain stop digging and get out of this hole? There is hope, if only because geopolitical calculations are constantly changing. Future trends are not all negative. And in terms of the specific Huawei and Hong Kong problems, still being a member of the EU would not have helped much.
Brussels has huffed and puffed about China’s disregard for international norms. But unlike Australia, no EU member state has yet joined Britain in extending a visa lifeline to Hong Kong citizens fleeing Beijing’s chokehold.
As for Huawei, there is no common EU position and no solidarity. The company claims to have lined up telecoms deals in numerous European countries. Some governments are reportedly waiting for Germany to make its decision, due in September.
But chancellor Angela Merkel, attuned to Germany’s vast export trade with China, seems unlikely to follow Britain and the US in excluding Huawei. In fact, she still hopes to convene a Covid-delayed EU-China summit within the coming year.
Nor, if it can help it, will the EU take sides in the wider US-China brawl. Some states are already in bed with Beijing economically while others, though critical, are no friends of Trump’s policy of belligerence.
Italy joined China’s Belt and Road global trade partnership last year, for example, while Greece promotes itself as China’s import “gateway” to Europe. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, prefers almost anyone to Donald Trump – even Vladimir Putin.
All is not lost in Europe. There is no bar to Britain working cooperatively with individual European states on specific policy issues, as it has with France and Germany on Iran. There is talk, too, of forming a new grouping of 10 leading democracies, the D-10, a possible replacement for the discredited G-7.
Britain’s escape from diplomatic purdah may also be assisted by future changes in the US-China dynamic. A case can be made that Xi, for all his unmatched power, has overplayed his hand of late and may be forced to recalibrate – or risk losing ground at home.
Trump’s accusations over the origin and handling of the pandemic are but part of a larger battle. Rows with Australia over an international Covid-19 inquiry, with Canada over alleged hostage-taking, with India over a disputed Himalayan border, with Vietnam and the Philippines over maritime rights, and now with Taiwan and Hong Kong have created an impression of China versus the world. Its reputation has suffered.
When the economic impact of the pandemic, the market-roiling US-China trade stand-off and increasingly strident western criticism about human rights abuses are factored in, it’s not hard to imagine Xi quietly rowing back a little – which would potentially benefit Britain.
Likewise, Washington’s overbearing, predatory behaviour towards friends and allies may also change dramatically if Biden wins in November. The Democrat, mocked by Trump for being soft on China, has been more sharply critical of Beijing of late.
Yet Biden’s whole approach to foreign relations is summed up by the term “strategic empathy”. He has spent decades as a senator and vice-president building bridges, not burning them. He knows China well. As some in Whitehall and Westminster seem to hope, his election could improve the geopolitical climate overnight.
With a new president in the White House, there would still be tensions with Beijing. But talk of cold war would be likely to recede rapidly. Biden is an old hand. He knows the geopolitical game. And he believes in win-win outcomes. That’s something the infinitely conflicted Johnson could learn from.
Washington’s predatory behaviour towards friends and allies may also change dramatically if Biden wins in November