Huawei decision shows China’s expansionism won’t be tolerated forever
It would have been easier for Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to yell “full astern all engines” when making his breathless announcement that the UK was to exclude Chinese giant Huawei from any significant role in the development of the 5G network.
He might also have echoed the catchphrase of Lance-Corporal Jones from the comedy Dad’s Army – “Don’t panic” – because panic there evidently is in government ranks over the switch of policy.
Why has it all taken so long, since the writing has for so long been on the wall? The reality has been clear since January for the less perspicacious of the Westminster village, and since 2018 for the more strategically attuned.
Dowden said the main reason for the change is the renewed sanctions policy from the US, which would hit British industry, exports and communications security. Almost as an afterthought he added that the Five Eyes alliance, FVEY, is dead against any involvement of Huawei in any serious future developments of telecommunications, data collection, and surveillance by any electronic means.
FVEY is the intelligence alliance of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, working through such hubs as the General Communications HQ in Cheltenham and the National Cyber Agency in the UK.
Two years ago Australia decided to exclude Huawei from its development of 5G, causing a huge fuss as China is a big customer for Australian raw materials and agricultural produce, especially cereals. It was a bipartisan decision in Canberra, endorsed by the former Labor prime minister, foreign minister and ambassador to Beijing, Kevin Rudd, a recognised sinologist.
“Why has it taken you so long, given Australia’s decision against Huawei in 2018?”, the SNP’s John Nicolson asked Dowden in the Commons. The FVEY aspect has a lot to do with the United States’ pressure for the UK to ditch Huawei, too, though the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, didn’t care to mention it.
For months, congressmen and congresswomen from both sides in Washington have been pressing to legislate against any US military cooperation with allies that have Huawei in their communications systems. The military said they would not base the new F-35 multirole combat plane in forward bases in the UK, if the UK persisted in having Huawei anywhere near their communications systems – especially in the UK’s own F-35 Lightning aircraft.
In addition, cooperation with RAF electronic warfare and surveillance aircraft such as the Rivet Joint airborne jamming and surveillance planes and the new Poseidon P8 maritime patrol aircraft would be stopped. Both sets of aircraft work inter-operably with American and British crews – often flying with mixed teams.
The warning about Huawei and the military was delivered in blunt terms by Senator Joseph Cotton a few weeks back, though few in the London commentariat took him seriously. China has been trying for years to get into the software secrets of the F-35, the first so-called “generation five” combat plane in aviation history. They have some of the secrets already, no doubt.
The readjustment of relations with China won’t stop with Huawei. They are masters at backdoor entry into complex computer and surveillance systems – and they do not do this for the common good. China has been making a concerted advance into Europe, but even the most bland diplomatic gestures seem always to have a dark side.
China aims to sign up as much as it can of the EU to President Xi’s prestige project par excellence, the Belt and Road Initiative, an attempt to reconstitute a Silk Road corridor for commerce and culture by land, sea, air and, if needs be, space. They are reversing Marco Polo’s route, from Cathay in its modern form to Venice, taking in Genoa, Trieste, Piraeus, and large elements of the Europort at Rotterdam.
But while their commercial envoys and diplomats have been opening their hand to new European partners, offering a €2.5 billion package to Italy last year, they have persisted in cyber attacks across Europe this year – including hacks on the German public health system in the midst of the Covid crisis.
China’s presence in the UK’s civil nuclear power industry now must be questioned. Is their role in the Hinkley C station desirable or necessary? In truth, is the monster installation at Hinkley C desirable or even necessary altogether? Involvement in the civil nuclear industry quickly takes you to the military nuclear sector – they research side by side – in which China has shown unhealthy and persistent interest.
China’s foreign policy in trade and culture, security and commerce, is based on its own brand of aggressive, and armed, mercantilism.
The gazetteer of new areas of influence and interesting is dazzling. China is now working up long-term alliances with Serbia and Iran. It is aiming to buy up two ports on the Iranian shore of the Gulf. Particularly strategic is Jask in the Gulf of Oman, close to the Straits of Hormuz.
The 25-year treaty with Iran, due to be signed within weeks, offers to buy Iranian oil, and renew the oil industry, Iranian communications, including 5G, and refurbish the entire order of battle of Iran’s forces – and presumably with nuclear-capable kit.
In the Mediterranean, China is as active now on the southern shore as the north. With gas and oil prices diving, China is offering to help Algeria. New port facilities and refurbishment of infrastructure are on offer – at a price .
The new mercantilism – an update of the 18th century view that world trade was a cake with the big slices going to the brave, bold and greedy – seems to be reaching an impasse. Clients in Africa and Asia, especially would-be clients for the Belt and Road, seem to be turned off by the harsh terms of interest now being demanded of loans. The whole scheme could be reaching its limit of exploitation, as the military would say.
Covid and the ageing population create deepening stresses at home – a reminder of the old pre-Maoist adage that China is on a path to grow grey before it grows rich. Human rights will not go away, and protests about rights in Hong Kong and the Uighur minority of Xinjiang will get through, despite Xi’s attempt to shutter off influence from China’s internet discussion platforms.
The crude attempt to muzzle any criticism in the UN Human Rights Committee – in which Beijing has managed to persuade 53 nations to back its crackdown on Hong Kong – will get only so far. Similarly, the attempt following US withdrawal to buy the World Health Organisation with lavish subsidies won’t help either Beijing or the WHO, practically or morally.
The renewed displays of menace and aggression, from the Himalayan border with India, the crackdown in Hong Kong, the round-up, detention and reported sterilisation and of the Uighurs, and renewed sabre-rattling across the South China Sea, suggest the current Beijing regime senses time running out. There are now fears that Xi Jinping could attempt to seize Taiwan by force of arms in the next two to three years.
All of this should make Boris Johnson’s government think even more deeply about what kind of China it wants to deal with and on what terms.