Are you less stupid and corrupt than the Tory UK government? Are you capable of collaborative partnerships, investments in the future and strategic thinking? Yes? Well then you are a threat to Britain – like China! Let me explain.
This extraordinary article appeared in The Guardian yesterday, it refers to a report published by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC). It refers to China and the language is insulting and inflammatory:
“The UK’s approach to a “whole of state” assault by the Chinese government on its economy, politics, civil infrastructure and academia is completely inadequate, an influential parliamentary committee has found.”
Wait – what? Are we at war with China already? What is the nature of this assault?
“China’s state institutions were aggressively targeting the UK, the all-party intelligence and security committee (ISC) said, and “without swift and decisive action” a nightmare scenario could emerge where China represented not just a commercial challenge but an existential threat to liberal democratic systems.”
My goodness! How exactly are Chinese State institutions targeting the UK?
“Until recently the UK government was willing to accept Chinese money with few questions asked”
Well what ethical questions has the UK ever asked as regards the origins of foreign money? The UK is one of the world’s largest arms dealers and will sell to any repressive regime or human rights abusers for cash in hand.
London became a property casino for foreign oligarchs (not least for friends of Putin) and a huge financial hub precisely because few questions are asked. So taking Chinese money is just business as usual in what the rest of the world calls ‘treasure island’. What has suddenly become so threatening?
“Academia is an easy option when it comes to the theft of intellectual property, with China taking advantage of collaborative projects to steal information which may be less protected,”
An odd sentence that. So China is invited to collaborate in academic research and after accepting in good faith is accused of theft because shared information ‘may be less protected’. Isn’t sharing information kind of the point of academic collaborations – are Chinese academics so stupid that we have nothing to learn from them also?
The report ramps up the rhetoric still further:
“Finding that the west was generally too reliant on Chinese technology, the report said that “without swift and decisive action we are on a trajectory for a nightmare scenario where China steals blueprints, sets standards and builds products, exerting political and economic influence at every step. This presents a serious commercial challenge but also has the potential to pose an existential threat to liberal democratic systems.”
So China is going to build products? Any cursory glance at world trade shows China has been designing and mass exporting ‘products’ for some time now and this perhaps explains the jealousy and alarm behind this bizarre report.
This recently published trade and investment factsheet from the UK government shows trade with China up 18% over the last four quarters to £111 billion with £73 billion being imports! China is the UK’s fourth largest trading partner, not something that has been achieved by stealth.
Interestingly this report from the UK Office of National Statistics shows net flows of UK foreign direct investment (FDI) in China are more than double that of Chinese FDI in the UK. Someone should warn the Chinese!
What happened to the free trade that the Tories are supposed to be so keen on anyway? Why won’t the market magically sort all this out? Are the Tories sudden converts to state intervention in global trade?
“The committee also said that allowing China to invest in the UK’s civil nuclear programme was in effect ceding control to the Chinese Communist party.”
An odd statement from a nation whose media is owned by foreign oligarchs and whose government has been perfectly happy to sell off its water, electricity, and transport utilities to foreign state owned entities around the globe. Its not like the British nuclear construction industry can do the work, the UK outsourced much of its bothersome industrial capacity to places like erm China decades ago – but you can’t build big infrastructure projects with financial services companies. If China agrees to build our nuclear power stations for us then this is a threat apparently and they are to be feared and blamed.
“The Chinese embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.”
I’m not surprised! They won’t waste their time with such nonsense. They will continue to develop strategic partnerships around the world in exactly the same way that the west has done for many decades. Its kind of funny to see karma coming to the west via the globalisation it foisted on others.
I suspect that this report reveals nothing more than the UK waking up at last to the reality that it doesn’t matter all that much any more and throwing a tantrum – a reflection by a vassal state of the decline of U.S. economic and military hegemony.
I suspect that the Chinese are guilty of nothing more than being many orders of magnitude less stupid than the current Tory government of the UK. Not an especially high bar for the Chinese to vault over.
That is a superb analysis. People need to go to China and see why the West is trying to shape this anti-China narrative. They cannot compete with China in many fields. Watch this video that was made by my son who has lived and worked in China for 15 years for clues, he won’t be coming back my time soon.
https://youtu.be/4VwoizLZruI
“the west was generally too reliant on Chinese technology” – in that case, should we not be trying to steal it from them? Seems odd that if their tech is so advanced that we have to rely on it, that they would have to stoop to stealing it back from us. But then the tories have never been keen on logical thought, usually because they are too concerned with stealing and lying themselves.
Indeed – people who fear Chinese tech espionage should hop on a plane and wander around Shenzen for a few days! Quite the education awaits!