How concerned should Britain be about the security threat from China?

As the deputy prime minister sets out the government’s approach to the challenge presented by the superpower, Sean O’Grady looks at the extent of the problem – and at what can be done to mitigate it

Oliver Dowden gives a speech on Thursday at Chatham House about economic security (PA)

In another sign of cooling Sino-British relations, the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, has signalled that the government will examine new measures to protect sensitive technology developed in British universities from being transferred to overseas competitors, with particular reference to China.

Ministers will also consider measures to prevent British institutions from becoming too dependent on foreign investment, in light of a Whitehall review of security threats to British academia. In a slightly unfortunately phrased warning, Dowden said that “cutting-edge development in sensitive technologies” in Britain’s universities had “the potential to become a chink in our armoury [sic]”. The fear is that the West is “in cyber and economic contestation with an increasing range of state and non-state actors”.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has also warned about British businesses and consumers becoming overly dependent on Chinese imports. It feels like a long time since David Cameron, the then prime minister, declared a “golden age” in relations between Britain and China...

What’s the problem?

The new problem is suspicion about Chinese intelligence operations. There have been suggestions, albeit without much evidence, that the Chinese may have been behind the recent “honeytrap” blackmail attempt perpetrated against Tory MP William Wragg (and against some other parliamentarians and Westminster journalists, some still unnamed, who have also been targeted).

In addition, as Dowden explains, there is the wider risk that Chinese technologies and systems could be used to gather data about UK companies, public organisations, households and individuals.

Some years ago, under the May and Johnson administrations, concerns were raised about the involvement of China in the UK’s civil nuclear power programme, and about Huawei’s role in the 5G rollout. More recent concerns, as in the US, have focused on social media, especially TikTok, and even the suggestion that data might be obtained via the use of Chinese-manufactured cars (though there’s no evidence of this).

Anything else?

Of course. Over the last decade or so, the British have grown more concerned about China’s oppression at home and expansion abroad. In particular, Beijing has effectively abrogated the Joint Declaration on the question of Hong Kong – the UN-registered treaty that was supposed to be the basis of Chinese rule in Hong Kong for 50 years after the British left the colony in 1997.

The “one country, two systems” approach has been all but abandoned, and the protections put in place to provide for an independent judiciary, free media, multiple political parties, freedom of assembly and free speech have been steadily extinguished, despite protests both locally and internationally.

Chinese repression of Tibet and the Muslim Uyghur people has also caused friction. China’s assertion of sovereignty over large parts of the South China Sea has alarmed its neighbours, such as Vietnam and the Philippines, and Taiwan is under continual intimidation.

Criticism of China by British MPs, such as Iain Duncan Smith, has seen them become a target for harassment, impersonation, and attempted hacking attacks by Chinese entities, as well as official sanctions.

The formation of Aukus, a joint defence project between Australia, the UK and the US (with Japan a prospective fourth party), has been viewed with great suspicion by the Communist Party leadership. Russia’s war on Ukraine and subsequent isolation has also pushed these two traditional rivals closer together. It feels like blocs of great powers are coalescing into a 20th-century-style confrontation.

What is the UK going to do about it?

Aside from forming closer defence and security relationships with its traditional allies and friends in the region, Dowden suggests that Britain could undertake a series of smaller-scale targeted initiatives to improve security.

These include improvements to export controls on emerging technologies, and a review team whose aims will be “to better understand potential risks from outward direct investment, update National Protective Security Authority guidance to highlight the risks, and issue guidance on how the government’s existing powers can potentially be used to mitigate this risk and evaluate whether further powers are required”.

Surely there are drawbacks to cutting ties with the world’s second-largest economy?

Yes. Although now unthinkable, a wide-reaching free trade and economic cooperation agreement with China was one of the proposed benefits of Brexit, pivoting the UK decisively towards a huge and fast-growing market and source of investment. The chance of such an agreement is more or less long gone, and with it the prospect of boosting Britain’s anaemic economic growth.

From the point of view of consumers, China has been responsible for lowering the cost of items such as clothing, smartphones, and latterly, battery electric vehicles. It also remains a crucial source of components and equipment for British manufacturers and other companies. “Onshoring” such supply chains and deglobalising operations across the West will indeed promote economic security, boosting local job creation; but it probably won’t make Western consumers better off.

Are there any votes in this?

Not many. The main parties agree on the challenge China poses, and both are faced with the same trade-offs in policymaking.

The main impact of the cooling of relations is that it makes Brexit seem even less successful than it did already, by cutting off the key benefit of a closer economic relationship with a superpower. Indeed, the imminent Chinese accession to the trans-Pacific partnership, the east Asian economic bloc of which the UK is a member, presents the possibility that the UK may have to abandon a much-trumpeted post-Brexit trade deal.