How Should We View China?

power, values and interests ...

This is a moment when the UK - China relationship is under the spotlight. There is an ongoing furore that I will not comment on. Rather, I think it best to stand back and view China, and our engagement with it, from a broader perspective.

China is clearly a global economic power. It is tied into key supply chains and has outstanding capability in manufacture where it has achieved a significant ‘know-how advantage’. It has a rapidly developing infrastructure. It has been successful in leveraging scale and a very large home market. It is able to assert economic influence through its position in global trade and targeted investment. It has expanded this influence both regionally in Asia, and increasingly in other regions where it contests US and European influence. It holds unique trading assets not least in critical minerals and other areas. It has a key role to play in the energy transition. It possesses growing scientific and technological capacity. Relevant to many prof serious readers, of course, it supplies a large number of international students to the UK’s higher education system

For all these reasons, China constitutes not simply a ‘geopolitical fact’ that requires acknowledgement, but a vitally important axis of economic opportunity, and necessarily a key focus for the UK’s diplomatic and foreign affairs engagement. This should be wholly unsurprising.

There is a flip-side. China is an authoritarian one-party state. Power is monopolised by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which controls the executive, legislature, judiciary, military, media, and most - if not all - civil organisations. The values that the CCP espouses are directly opposed to those of liberal democracy, and are deeply oppressive and threatening. It subjugates its own minorities and surveils its citizens. China operates as a near-peer in defence terms to the US (though this is untested). It is supported in this by a system of civil-military fusion that blurs the boundary between commercial and military enterprise and thereby taints many of its industrial and technological organisations. It combines soft-power with subversive overseas influence. China seeks to operate as a regional hegemon, and in particular threatens Taiwan. It uses economic leverage for political and strategic advantage, and to support this hegemonic ambition. It allies with Russia, North Korea and enables the breaking of international sanctions. In the UK, China has consistently sponsored espionage, the theft of intellectual property, political interference, and direct threats to political opponents of the CCP.

Clearly, China’s actions in these regards threaten the UK’s national security. But, our economic wellbeing - growth and prosperity - are also key to our national security. So, we are caught in a bind, and any political assertions, or simplistic judgments, that fail to recognise the nature and depth of this bind should be treated with appropriate scepticism. My core argument is that we should lean into the tensions and ambiguities that necessarily arise.

We ask ourselves: is China an ‘enemy’, an ‘adversary’, a ‘competitor’, or a ‘partner’? The answer is surely, in some part each of these. An enemy in its aggressive militarised stance towards our allies, its own alliances with Russia and enabling of the Ukraine conflict, its campaigns of political interference. An adversary inherent in the deep opposition of values, the weaponisation of supply chains and the persistent use of espionage. A competitor straightforwardly in seeking to position itself in key markets and aiming to achieve economic advantage by leveraging its capacity to fuse market-facing and state-controlled enterprise. A partner in the construction of sustainable trading and cultural relationships.

In much of the current discussions national security, both as an aim and a capability, has been misunderstood. First and foremost, national security actively supports engagement ... safely. It does not demand isolation, rather informed openness. National security can underpin and enhance an outward-facing trading approach to economic opportunity. Second, national security depends on a clear sighted appraisal of the capabilities and intent of those with whom we engage, achieved through intelligence and analysis. Failure to properly account for the inherent tensions in our relationship with China gives rise to the potential for intelligence and analysis failure; they must proceed from a properly balanced and nuanced appraisal of the national interest.

And here we confront the key issue - China policy - reflecting that national interest. The UK has lacked a China policy. More directly it has presented an ill-formed, and shifting, set of positions as if this constituted a policy. A framework (Protect-Align-Engage or whatever) is not a policy. Incoherence is not the same as ‘strategic ambiguity’ and in any event ‘strategic ambiguity’ would be an ill-judged position to take in this context. An ‘actor-agnostic’ approach to national security challenges is patently inadequate.

We must spell out clearly our aspirations for the UK - China relationship. We must set out our red lines and the consequences to China for over-stepping them. We must link a China policy to our industrial policy and to our strategic defence posture. We must do this in a way that is suitably granular and precise so that the policy can be delivered both by government and by organisations beyond government. We must engage with the USA, as our principal ally, and - however difficult this may prove to be in the current circumstances - understand how our aspirations align with their stance. We must seek a reconciliation of our respective positions. We cannot develop a credible China policy absent a broader Asia-Pacific framing. Ultimately, we will need to reflect on our position with a realistic assessment of our ability to exercise influence on China, at least directly.

Whatever our policy might achieve, it must critically provide for clear messaging. Our existing ‘policy’ or, as I have argued, lack of policy, does not simply misdirect us, it confuses China, as evidenced by their reaction to our ‘China politics’.

With China policy in place we are then in a position to develop the national security tools and capacity to deliver it. This should include a significantly enhanced ‘counter hostile state’ capability, investment more broadly in protective security (including the neglected domain of technical security), and a transformed technical and economic open source intelligence capability.

We have an advantage. China is ultimately a beneficiary of globalisation, and thus a global rules-based order. A mutually beneficial relationship is possible, but it will require steadiness, clarity, and the consistent exercise of strategic discipline.