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How do you deal with a monster?

Writer's picture: Keith BestKeith Best

In the midst of a credit crisis Rachel Reeves’ visit to China has provoked a predictable criticism that she has fled her domestic responsibilities by preferring to treat with the dragon. Those in support of her visit have scorned the last Government for not engaging with the second largest global economy amid the amour-propre of concerns over human rights abuses perpetrated by Beijing (to say nothing of its reneging on the One Country Two Systems treaty arrangement for Hong Kong). Who is right? Wherein lies the UK’s best interests? Can any trading nation in these chastened times of economic survival, when even net zero and greening goals are being questioned as to their financial viability, afford an ethical foreign policy? Can we exercise the luxury (some would say civilised duty) of calling out human rights abuses in countries on whose trade or purchasing capacity we rely?


It seems clear that such considerations will not trouble transactional Trump as President who already looks at friends and foes alike on the basis of what good any deal can do the USA rather than on any ethical grounds. For the Leader of the Western World to invite indictment as a war criminal if he were to carry out his indirect threat of main force against another sovereign territory is not new (think of Grenada?) but is hardly a discouragement to deter others who actually commit acts of aggression. International treaty and convention agreement on protection of human rights lies in the gutter in terms of compliance. It is not through want of trying. Both international and national non-governmental organisations are highlighting modern slavery, unwarranted arrest of journalists, the plight of the Uyghur, the appalling conditions facing the Palestinians, the plight of women in Afghanistan and elsewhere, corruption and other evils that still stalk the world despite countries agreeing to eliminate them.


So, in this increasingly lawless, multi-polar, anti-globalisation and environmentally challenged world, where nations can be humbled not just through force of arms but through cyber-attack, disruption of energy supplies and manipulation of markets, in which government of the people, for the people and by the people is itself under threat from disaffection with inaction, desire for simple and immediate solutions and fake news, how do we deal with the monsters?


Unpalatable though it may be to those who want an easy life disengaged from politics, the answer is not to humour them or to give way. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his intentions have often been likened to those of Hitler who had territorial ambitions for lebensraum and the recreation of a Germanic empire as well as playing his adversaries with false doctrine that after the latest land-grab he had no further aspirations (the Anschluss, Sudetenland, Poland etc). He also never believed that Britain would go to war and was not prepared for it (in that he was perilously close to the truth). The supposed lack of preparation or resolve to stand up to aggression is a major motivator for an aggressor. We now know from released Japanese official papers that the attack on Pearl Harbour (the day that will live in infamy) was motivated by and conducted in the belief that American isolationism in the 1920s and its soft lifestyle indicated that the USA had no stomach for a major war. It was only Admiral Yamamoto who wrote with prescience “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve”.


This year will see whether a peace enforced on Ukraine will further encourage Putin in his aims or act as a deterrence to further aggression on a mind that respects strength and disparages weakness. We may not like having to be bellicose but, sadly, that is often the only message that the global bully will understand. It is so axiomatic with so many examples littering history that it should be unnecessary to repeat it – but seldom are the lessons learned and appeasement so often seems the easier answer. We should not forget how close we came to that in the UK with Chamberlain and Halifax – a people weary of war after the bloodletting of 1914-18, the 1934 Anglo-German Payments Agreement and the 1938 Munich Agreement. Appeasement failed as, I fear, it will fail with a Russia whose history of territorial aggrandisement should teach us the true nature of its leaders with such ambitions.


So we come back to China and our Chancellor arriving home with a piece of paper on which are written supposedly beneficial trade deals by refusing to impose extra tariffs on Chinese car companies and, in return, hoping to boost exports of financial services in the coming years. We do not yet know how this will pan out with Trump’s threat to impose at least 10% and possibly 60% tariffs on certain Chinese goods. How will this affect any trade deal for the UK with USA? What about our relationship with the EU which joined Canada and USA in imposing restrictions on Chinese electric car imports? Have we pinned our colours to the wrong mast? 


The moves to get Chinese companies to build UK nuclear plants (pushed by George Osborne with a previous pro-China policy) were halted over increasing concern about espionage and security.  While it is true that the UK imports more than twice as many goods from China as it exports there, China is seen as an attractive market for British financial services firms. How will they prosper in a country already infected with the interference of the Chinese Communist Party into almost every aspect of domestic business; how much autonomy might they achieve over their decisions? Is what has happened in Hong Kong not a warning signal as to how this may be a vale of tears? What will be the impact on a languishing British manufacturing sector of more Chinese imports and what of quality control? The danger is that Xi Jing Ping may be as nationalistically transactional as President Trump.


In the meantime, with its eye on Taiwan’s semiconductor sector (US$115 billion, around 20 percent of the global industry) and its foundry operations (in which Taiwanese companies account for 50 percent of the world market), China continues to threaten Taiwan (unrecognised as a separate country by most of the world including USA) with assimilation through military force as being an integral part of China. Can the world (can USA) afford to allow all that semiconductor industry to become controlled by China? China is now dominating the South China Seas, building air bases on atolls not part of its territory, claiming Chinese airspace over international waters, threatening the Philippines’ and others’ fishing fleets. As Germany's Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schonbachsaid noted in 2021, China's navy is expanding by roughly the equivalent of the entire French navy every four years. In 2021, China commissioned at least 28 ships, while the US Navy was positioned to commission seven ships that year. If China executed an invasion of Taiwan it would be bloody. I have been there and seen the mountainous terrain which could harbour guerilla insurgency for years even in the face of overwhelming military might. Would the rest of the world stand by with a Chapter VII resolution in the UN Security Council vetoed by both China and Russia? Would the USA act or would isolationism or threat of global war prevent it? 


No-one can answer these questions but we can learn from history how we might react, preferably in advance rather than after the event. China has been a civilised and culturally rich country historically in advance of Europe but its leadership has not matched this rich heritage. The world that wants peace and civilised norms must stand up to Chinese aggression and infiltration (whether in Africa, Myanmar or Afghanistan) unless it applies those norms to itself. We can still work with the Chinese but sup with a long spoon and seek an influence based on how that also will benefit China in the way in which Deng Xiaoping accommodated change. Yet we must be clear that there are red lines including against aggression, exploitation and espionage. Whether the UK Government has the stomach for such a long process or not, we shall see.



Keith Best TD, MA is a former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Anglesey/Ynys Môn and served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Wales. Major in airborne and commando (artillery) forces, practising barrister, liveryman (Loriner), and Freeman of the City of London, Keith was named one of the 100 most influential people in public services in the UK by Society Guardian. Keith has made significant contributions to international refugee and human rights initiatives, including serving as Vice Chair of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and as a member of the Foreign Secretary’s Advisory Panel on Torture Prevention. He is the Chair & CEO of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust, Chair of the Universal Peace Federation (UK), patron of TEAM Global, and a trustee of several national and international organisations. 


The views and opinions expressed in our International Insights are strictly those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, policies, or positions of TEAM Global or its affiliates.

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