A little espionage here and there is to be expected in a world of great power politics. And in such a world, it is understood by most states — including those that do a lot of espionage — that one cracks down hard on spying operations when one finds them. Doing so might provoke some transient rhetorical bluster from the perpetrator, or even a more general cooling of relations, but it’s surely what any self-respecting country would do.
Unless, of course, that country is Britain and the perpetrator is China. To be sure, it is encouraging that Security Minister Dan Jarvis outlined a raft of measures for countering Chinese espionage earlier this week, following revelations of a major operation targeting Westminster and coming soon after the collapse of another major espionage case. Even the fact that MPs are now aware, thanks to MI5, that China engages in mass outreach in pursuit of apparently non-sensitive information is a marked improvement.
But despite the range of robust measures announced in the Commons, as the debate following the Minister’s statement went on, it became clear that the trade relationship remains of core consideration in how Britain responds to national security threats from Beijing. Especially when read against a series of China-related controversies from the earlier collapsed spy case to the proposed mega-embassy, a picture starts to emerge of a belief in government that China must be angered as little as possible for the sake of preserving good trade relations.
Accepting that espionage and interference will be attempted is one thing. Watering down responses to them for the sake of trade is quite another. These are direct threats to national sovereignty, not theoretical risks of leverage posed by supply chain dependencies or dual-use technology to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. China understands this well, and has been ruthless in its treatment of foreign espionage and influence operations. The trade-off is not between preventing espionage and trading with China — it is between asserting ourselves as a sovereign, self-respecting nation and becoming a willing pawn in great power competition. While Beijing will protest more loudly than it has, it will not cut off economic engagement if we get serious about stopping it from interfering in our internal affairs.
The British government’s approach to China is reflective of a worrying broader tendency to seek to avoid upsetting foreign powers as far as possible
But instead of recognising this, the British government’s approach to China is reflective of a worrying broader tendency to seek to avoid upsetting foreign powers as far as possible (most spectacularly in the obsequiousness shown to President Trump). This has real long-term costs not only for national security but in opening the door to further dependencies and signalling to the rest of the world that Britain is incapable of standing up for its most basic national interests.
The government’s wider approach to the UK-China relationship … remains naïve
At the same time, calls from the opposition to cancel diplomatic engagement with China are similarly unworkable. Britain no longer operates in the warm, fuzzy “rules-based international order” to which it has become accustomed, however much some might wish it did. The geopolitical landscape is rapidly shifting and China’s presence as a leading global actor is unavoidable. In a world where Britain is a middle power and relies on a service economy and global supply chains — even if some degree of reindustrialisation gets underway — splendid isolation is not an option.
Yet the government’s wider approach to the UK-China relationship also remains naïve, both to the nature of China as a geopolitical actor and to the other forces, such as emerging technologies. The absence of a published China audit makes it difficult to know precisely what has been classified where under the rubric of “compete, cooperate, challenge”, but recent interactions with China give a clue.
Earlier in November, British representatives from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) met with their counterparts in Beijing to discuss technology and research collaboration. This scaled back collaboration in areas seen as high risk, like AI and robotics, instead focusing on “uncontroversial” areas of health, climate, planetary sciences and agriculture.
Such an approach leaves myriad questions unanswered. What about research that uses AI for climatic or agricultural surveying, which could yield data about land use, say, which might be of interest to a foreign government with a track record of purchasing agricultural land next to its rivals’ military sites? Or the security of individual and population-level health data analysed by AI models? These might well have something to do with Britain’s national security. Conversely, what about collaboration on robotics and automation technologies which we are incapable of developing ourselves but which would be rather useful for reindustrialising? There is a plethora of fields where China’s technological lead is rapidly growing, access to which would be of direct interest to Britain. A crude division of fields into high and low risk obscures this.
So, on the one hand, the government recognises there are risks and opportunities presented by engagement with China, but appears unable to comprehend the true complexity this entails. This is as true of economic engagement as it is for science and tech — and perhaps reflects a lack of coordination and communication across departments. On the other hand, at the level of the UK-China relationship as a whole, the government seems unwilling to robustly defend British sovereignty and security from interference for fear of overly upsetting Beijing. The overall result is a stern commitment to national security pinned to an open door. And if there’s one thing Beijing both enjoys and excels at, it’s pushing on open doors.
A wholesale rethink is needed. Pragmatism towards the shifting balance of power is vital but need not come at the cost of sovereignty and security. Espionage, political interference, and transnational repression by a foreign state on British soil must not be tolerated at all. The solution is not to blindly cut ties with geopolitical reality, as some opposition politicians would have it, but to directly target China’s actors on the ground. As I have argued, this requires the immediate sanction and expulsion from Britain of any China-linked entity found to be involved in such actions.
This leaves the wider problem of disentangling risks and opportunities. No solution to this will be perfect, but for anything of value to be done the government needs a detailed understanding of China’s economic and political footprint in Britain — an actual China audit. This must be combined with joined up communication across government departments backed by a clear vision of what is and is not in the national interest in relation to China. That in turn requires the confidence for Britain to assert its most basic interests, in sovereignty and security, in the first place. Currently, that confidence appears lacking.
