UK-China ties freeze with debate over Huawei, Hong Kong

Only five years ago, n-British Prime Minister David Cameron was celebrating a “golden era” in U.K.-China relations, bonding with President Xi Jinping over a pint of beer at pub and signing off on trade deals worth billions. Those friendly scenes w seem like a distant memory. 

Hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent days over Beijing’s new national security law for Hong Kong. Britain’s decision to offer refuge to millions in former colony was met with a stern telling-off by China. And Chinese officials have threatened “consequences” if Britain treats it as a “hostile country” and decides to cut Chinese techlogy giant Huawei out of its critical telecoms infrastructure amid growing unease over security risks.

All that is pointing to a much tougher stance against China, with a growing number in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party taking a long, hard look at Britain’s Chinese ties. Many are saying Britain has been far too complacent and naive in thinking it could reap ecomic benefits from relationship without political consequences.

“It’s t about wanting to cut ties with China. It’s that China is itself becoming a very unreliable and rar dangerous partner,” said lawmaker and former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. He cited Beijing’s “trashing” of Si-British Joint Declaration — treaty supposed to guarantee Hong Kong a high degree of automy when it reverted from British to Chinese rule — and aggressive posturing in South China Sea as areas of concern.

“This is t a country that is in any way managing itself to be a good and decent partner in anything at moment. That’s why we need to review our relationship with m,” he added. “Those who think this is a case of separating trade from government … you can’t do that, that’s naïve.”

Duncan Smith has lobbied or Tory lawmakers to cut Huawei out from Britain’s superfast 5G network. t only that: He says all existing Huawei techlogy in U.K. telecoms infrastructure also needs to be eliminated as soon as possible. 
company has been at centre of tensions between China and Britain, as U.K. officials review how latest U.S. sanctions — imposed over allegations of cyber spying and aimed at cutting off Huawei's access to advanced microchips made with American techlogy — will affect British telecom networks. 

Johnson decided in January that Huawei can be deployed in future 5G networks as long as its share of market is limited, but officials have since hinted that that decision could be reversed in light of U.S. sanctions. A new policy is expected within weeks.

Huawei says it is merely caught in middle of a U.S.-China battle over trade and techlogy. It has consistently denied allegations it could carry out cyber espion or electronic sabot at behest of Chinese Communist Party.
“We’ve definitely been pushed into geopolitical competition,” Vice President Victor Zhang said Wednesday. U.S. accusations about security risks are all politically motivated, he said. 

Nigel Inkster, a senior adviser to International Institute for Strategic Studies and former director of operations and intelligence at Britain’s MI6 intelligence service, said issue with Huawei was t so much about immediate security threats. Rar, he said, deeper worry lies in geopolitical implications of China becoming world's dominant player in 5G techlogy.
“It’s less about cyber espion than generally conceived because, after all, that’s happening in any place,” he said. “This was never something of which U.K. was lacking awareness.”

Still, Inkster said he’s been cautioning for years that Britain needed a more coherent strategy toward China that balances ecomic and security factors. 

“re was a high degree of complacency” back in 2000s, he said. “re was always less to ‘golden era’ than met eye.”

Britain rolled out red carpet for Xi’s state visit in 2015, with golden carris and a lavish banquet at Buckingham Palace with Queen Elizabeth II. A cybersecurity cooperation deal was struck, along with billions in trade and investment projects — including Chinese state investment in a British nuclear power station. Cameron spoke about his ambitions for Britain to become China’s “best partner in West.”

Enthusiasm has cooled significantly since. English city of Sheffield, which was promised a billion-pound deal with a Chinese manufacturing firm in 2016, said investment never materialized. Critics have called it a vanity project and a “candy floss deal.”
Ecomic and political grumbles about China erupted into sharp rebukes earlier this month when Beijing imposed sweeping new national security laws on Hong Kong. Johnson’s government accused China of a serious breach of Si-British Joint Declaration and anunced it would open a special route to citizenship for up to 3 million eligible Hong Kong residents.

That amounts to “gross interference,” Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming said. Liu also warned that a decision to get rid of Huawei could drive away or Chinese investment in U.K., and derided Britain for succumbing to U.S. pressure over company.

Rana Mitter, an Oxford history professor specializing in China, said that security law — combined with broader resentment about Chinese officials’ handling of information about coronavirus — helped set st for a perfect storm of wariness among Britain’s politicians and public.

Mitter added that Britain has careened from “uncritically accepting everything about China” to a confrontational approach partly because of a lack of understanding about how China operates.

Some have cautioned against escalating tensions. Philip Hammond, former British Treasury chief, warned that weakening links with world’s second-largest ecomy was particularly unwise at a time when Britain is severing trade ties with Europe and seeking partners elsewhere. Hammond also said he was concerned about an “alarming” rise of anti-Chinese sentiment within his Conservative Party.

Duncan Smith rejected that, saying concerns about China’s rise are cross-party and multinational. He is part of Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a newly launched group of lawmakers from more than a dozen countries — from U.S. to Australia to Japan — that want a coordinated international response to Chinese challenge.
“We need to recognize that this isn't something one country can deal with,” he said.

(Im source: AP)