China is laughing at the West’s weakness
4 min read
From George Osborne’s “golden decade” to Keir Starmer’s ‘project kowtow’, Britain’s China policy has been confused, naive and weak.
Look at the promises made by the 2010 Coalition government that by opening our doors to communist China, we would achieve billions of pounds of increased growth (which hardly materialised). To do this, we turned a blind eye to the terrible oppression, the genocide in Xinjiang, the persecution of the Falun Gong religious movement, the persecution of Christians and the permanent threat of war against Taiwan.
The argument that granting China access to the free market would lead to greater democracy was a false one. For in 2020, China cracked down on Hong Kong calls for democracy and instituted the national security law, arresting swathes of peaceful protestors. In response, the UK government introduced the British National Overseas (BNO) scheme, allowing many fleeing oppression to come to the UK and settle.
Yet despite all that, with an economy that is weak and getting weaker, Starmer’s government has decided to reinvent the failed project kowtow and try to suck up to the appalling Chinese government in the hope of significant Chinese investment. One minister after another has flown to Beijing in search of growth opportunities, but this desperation is coming at a high price.
The West is facing the most dangerous threat to its freedom than at any time since the Cold War
The most public display of project kowtow came when the Prime Minister, during a G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro last year, was recorded telling President Xi that his government had, after insistence from President Xi, called in the Chinese embassy planning application.
This is the application to build a huge embassy on the ground of the historic Royal Mint, opposite the Tower of London. If built, it would be the largest Chinese embassy in Europe. Although the application had been rejected, this intervention, seen as very political, would override that decision.
It was previously rejected for good reasons. It will accommodate an extra 200 ‘Chinese officials’ – some might prefer to call them spies – and sits across crucial cabling to the City of London, posing significant threats to our communication links. Any protest there would shut down four important streets, as has already happened, causing chaos to central London. Furthermore, many of our allies, particularly the Americans, are concerned about it as well.
China refuses to comply with planning rules and has been found to be spying on the UK, and yet the government is determined to give them this historic site.
It turns out officials in the Foreign Office strongly support China’s demands. I understand they have been put under pressure from the Chinese government over the status of the British embassy in Beijing. Apparently, China has been shutting off the water supply to the embassy, while openly refusing the embassy to carry out necessary repairs, ‘unless’ the embassy in London is approved.
Sadly, all the time that the government fails to stand up to this threatening regime, the Chinese government laughs at our weakness while hounding Hong Kong dissidents in the UK. They now have a financial bounty on their heads and are being constantly harassed and threatened. Aided by illegal police stations, the Chinese have even taken to writing to their British neighbours, calling on them to seize these dissidents and take them to the embassy for their reward.
The stark reality, ignored by the government, is that China is now at the heart of an axis of totalitarian states – Russia, Iran, North Korea and other lesser states in the developing world – and has organised support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.
Xi is clear. His stated purpose is to create a new world order, to do away with freedom, democracy and the rule of law and replace it with China’s own authoritarian form of government.
We in the West are facing the most dangerous threat to our freedom than at any time since the Cold War. The government must act in the UK’s national interest and push back.
Iain Duncan Smith is MP for Chingford and Woodford Green, and a former leader of the Conservative Party
