Two important developments have forced Johnson’s hand. The first, clearly visible even as he tossed out those Brexit promises, is the growing systemic competition between the US and China – a competition in which both superpowers will increasingly insist that smaller countries, such as the UK, take sides. The second is a startling reversal of attitudes to China within the Conservative Party. Its leaders, only a few years ago, declared undying friendship with the People’s Republic (a relationship that George Osborne embarrassingly titled as the “golden decade” of UK-China relations); now the party is settling into unremitting hostility.
The beginnings of this remarkable U-turn pre-date the pandemic. The process has been greatly reinforced, however, by Beijing’s early cover-up of Covid-19 and its subsequent aggressive propaganda, and by the imposition of a draconian security law on Hong Kong that effectively tears up China’s agreement with the UK to leave Hong Kong’s way of life unchanged for 50 years. The UK’s recent promise of a “pathway to citizenship” for Hong Kong citizens who hold British National (Overseas) passports – which was described by the Global Times, China’s nationalist mouthpiece, as a “rubber cheque” – provoked an angry response from Beijing, where the move was characterised as an imperial power trying to interfere in China’s internal affairs. [...]
The Huawei decision should also calm the fury that has been simmering in Washington, DC since Johnson’s initial failure to fall in line. Yet this reversal will, inevitably, provoke ear-splitting volumes of complaint from the Chinese government, along with threats of a general retreat of Chinese investment from the UK and retaliation against UK companies and interests. British companies that depend on the Chinese market – such as the bank HSBC, which backed China’s new security laws in Hong Kong – should be nervous. [...]
Pro-Brexit Atlanticists such as Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson sit alongside Remainers, such as William Hague and Tugendhat, concerned about China’s encroachment on liberal democratic values. Others, such as David Davis, are there for the civil liberties ques-tions, and human rights advocates such as Fiona Bruce, the MP for Congleton, and the activist Benedict Rogers, who runs the Conservative Human Rights Commission and is a co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, form another sub-set. A further group comprises those who fear the economic impacts of Chinese trade practices, and long-standing China sceptics such as Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former aide and occasional New Statesman essayist.
