A conflict is brewing in the Far East — keep Britain out

Give peace a chance

In January 1950, the British government recognised the People’s Republic of China as the sole government of that country, becoming the first Western nation to do so. It was an act of pure cynicism. Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalists on Formosa, with whom we had been allied a few years earlier, were cut off. Six months prior, we had been fighting the Chinese Communist Party in the Yangtze; six months later, we would be battling them in Korea. This was a decision made solely with the interests of British business in mind – and it was the correct one. Seventy-four years later, the Chinese Communist Party still runs Mainland China, and almost every other state has now followed our lead. As Winston Churchill observed at the time: ‘The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience’.

Perfidious Albion indeed. But British foreign policy has been at its most successful when driven by realism and self-interest. Our worst foreign policy disasters, by contrast, occurred when policy was instead driven by humanitarian impulses. Lord Palmerston observed in 1848 that ‘we have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow’. This frame set Britain on a sound course for a century.

Pragmatism has long fallen into abeyance. Since the Suez Crisis, the basis of British foreign policy has been to walk carefully in America’s footsteps. During the Cold War, this strategy had a rational basis: the threat of Communism, in Europe and worldwide. It was sensible for British politicians, having seen Communism expanding so rapidly outwards, to conclude that the survival of the United Kingdom was at risk. Confronted by an existential threat, close alignment to a greater power was a rational choice. Dangerous times necessitate difficult choices.

The end of the Cold War earnt the United States three decades as the unchallenged superpower. With the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact gone, we could have begun untethering ourselves from Washington. Britain instead continued to pursue a ‘special relationship’. Here, too, there was a certain logic: if there is but one global power, why not maintain a close allegiance to it? And so we followed America into Afghanistan and Iraq, at the cost of hundreds of British lives and billions of pounds. At the start of 2024, the Foreign Office still adheres to the State Department line with slavish enthusiasm. In Venezuela, Syria, and Afghanistan we continue to ‘recognise’ long crushed opposition factions as the legitimate regime, many years after the world has moved on. Julian Assange has spent four years in prison without trial on trumped-up charges that any self-respecting country would have long dismissed. Our obeisance has been rewarded with meddling in our internal politics, the undermining of our sovereignty, and extraterritoriality for American spies. British politicians are periodically humiliated in their quest for an American trade deal.

The United States is not an ally which can be relied upon when the tides turn, as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, South Vietnam, and the Republic of China all learnt the hard way. Our kowtowing is not only undignified, but unnecessary: France has maintained a far more independent foreign policy, without any president showing any interest in Corsican or Basque nationalism.

The middle of the 2010s saw a flutter of independent thinking in the United Kingdom. Cameron and Osborne recognised the economic opportunities China presented, and their decision to welcome Xi Jinping and join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank earned open criticism from Washington. Parliament put a stop to any involvement in Barack Obama’s abortive attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. And the British public ignored American warnings on Brexit. This was stifled under Johnson (an American citizen until his fifties), Truss (a fanatical Atlanticist), and finally, Sunak: a long-time US resident, a green card holder, a father to American citizens, and a man who will inevitably resume his life in California after the next election.

At the start of 2024, it is clear that American geopolitical power has passed its apex. This is not third-worldist wish fulfilment. The United States will not be dismembered like the Soviet Union, or collapse into civil war. It will remain by far the most powerful single country in the world for decades to come. But it nonetheless faces relative decline and the steady curtailing of its reach. To some extent, this is only natural, perhaps even inevitable: no great power in all of history was as dominant as the United States was at the close of 1991, and in hindsight, it should have been obvious that the ‘unipolar moment’ was never going to last forever.

In this phase of history, keeping so closely in lockstep with American foreign policy becomes not only foolish, but dangerous. A confrontation is brewing with China, which we risk being sucked into. Eighty years of US domination in Asia is coming to an end.

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China’s territorial ambitions towards Taiwan are implacable. Reunification is a nationalistic, economic, political, and strategic imperative. The Communist Party’s thuggishness and lack of imagination in Hong Kong has killed any chance of a peaceful unification. While an outright invasion of Taiwan seems far off, Beijing has many ways to turn the screw. There are dozens of smaller islands waiting to be picked off. Some, like Kinmen, are less than four miles from the mainland’s coast. China continually probes Taiwan’s ability to respond. Aside from an invasion, some form of naval blockade is an obvious and tempting proposition. Whether it comes in months or years, eventually we will be forced to decide how to react.

The Nine Dash Line is another flashpoint: China seeks to control all the seas from Hong Kong to Malaysia. In the South China Sea, the PRC can achieve its objectives through a long, slow squeeze. With its superior resources, economic heft, and military muscle it can afford to be patient and unrelenting. The Filipino hold on their remote shoals becomes less tenable each year. The Paracel Islands were peeled off from Vietnam in 1974; Fiery Cross Reef in 1988; Mischief Reef in 1994; Scarborough Shoal in 2012. Key shipping lanes, 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 11 billion barrels of oil are at stake. Eventually, America’s allies must decide whether to be pushed out, or escalate the conflict. As no country in the region is able to confront China alone (and there is no appetite for a collective defence arrangement), this would inevitably involve the American military. The Americans are clearly alive to this challenge: every president since Obama has spoken of China or a pivot to Asia, although the tactics have see-sawed between administrations.

This is not an ideological contest. The United States is more than happy to rebuild its relations with the ultra-authoritarian and (nominally) ‘communist’ Socialist Republic of Vietnam as part of the containment strategy. Even if the citizens of the People’s Republic of China woke up tomorrow morning to find their country transformed into a liberal democracy, the same considerations would still apply. Taiwan would remain a key link in the First Island Chain; the separation would still be an open wound from the century of humiliation; the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would retain its essential role in the world economy; and China would still chafe at American containment. A China with the political system of Denmark would still challenge American dominance. The United States is not willing to surrender its economic hegemony. The coming clash is not democracy versus tyranny, but American or Chinese dominance in Asia. China is clearly arming itself for the fight. From 2005 to 2022, the Chinese Navy added 135 ships to its inventory, becoming the largest in the world. In the same period, the the US Navy added only two.

It is also an economic confrontation. It is easy to overlook the unique and privileged position the United States maintains in the world economy. As the world’s monopole, with the dollar as the reserve currency, they are able to comfortably maintain otherwise unsustainable fiscal policies. Their power can isolate Iran and prise open Swiss banks. Being dislodged from the top of the pole would cause serious, permanent pain. The US will fight to stay on top: Trump and Biden’s sanctions are only the opening shots of this battle.

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When push comes to shove, excitable Tory backbenchers will be Googling ‘Matsu Islands’ and trying to pronounce ‘Hu Zhongming’. Already an assortment of ‘hawkish’ anti-China groups have sprung up: the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (starring Liz Truss and Iain Duncan Smith); the China Research Group (ft. Tom Tugendhat); Hong Kong Watch (Sarah Champion and Alistair Carmichael). You can practically script the demands that we Defend Our Allies, and Stand Up For Democracy. Condemnations. Sanctions. Arms. War. Ukraine redux, only against a far more powerful enemy — and one that is far further away, and far less relevant to our immediate geopolitical interests.

And while China might be far away, for Britain, involvement in the coming conflict would bring pain well beyond that of previous and ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Military involvement could cost us billions in materiel and thousands of lives in a matter of days. Are we prepared to lose our aircraft carriers over the balance of power in the Pacific? Even if our involvement was limited to economic measures, the consequences for our economy would be nightmarish, beyond the impact of COVID, the Ukrainian crisis, or the 2008 financial crisis. How much poorer are you willing to become for democracy in Taiwan? What are you willing to suffer to preserve the American world order?

The Conservative Party is firing itself up. During the last leadership contest, candidates strained to out-tough the other on China. Sunak called China our number one threat. Truss said she’d rally the Commonwealth against them. Sunak promised to shut Confucius Institutes. Truss offered to arm Taiwan. A tedious rigmarole plays out every few months over whether or not to define China as a ‘threat’.

Since taking office, Sunak has calmed a little. The Confucius Institutes will stay (as China would just have shuttered the British Council offices over there). Truss, on the other hand, shorn of the responsibilities of high office, has tried to position herself as the ringleader of the coterie of the most histrionic China Hawks. Never mind the British Government’s seventy-four years of solely recognising the People’s Republic of China: as well as arming Taiwan, Truss would have us pre-emptively sanctioning China to protect a state we don’t even recognise. Why not start a Pacific Defence Alliance too (SEATO worked so well)! NATO expansion has already committed us to defend the territorial integrity of of Bulgaria and Albania with English blood – Truss would have us doing the same for Second Thomas Shoal.

China is not a threat to Britain. No revolutions will embrace Xi Jinping thought. They have neither the means nor ambition to interfere meaningfully in Europe. A demographic crunch puts a clear horizon to the growth of Chinese power. China has no territorial conflicts with the United Kingdom: unlike the European Union, it does not seek to control any part of our country. Beijing, unlike Washington, does not imagine it has a right to meddle in our domestic arrangements. Unlike India, the Chinese have not attempted to impose the mass immigration of their countrymen as part of a trade deal. We are almost embarrassed to recognise that they are our fourth biggest economic partner. Trade with China has kept inflation low, and resulted in huge profits for British banks.

Relations with China will not be straightforward. But issues such as their spying and our economic vulnerability could be dealt with by resolving our own domestic problems. All powers spy. Chinese spies are more prevalent here than in the United States because we are a soft target due to our dysfunctional systems and weak punishments. We don’t need George Smiley to work out that Chinese members of the Communist Party shouldn’t be MPs. The embarrassing antics of their ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats has only earned China hostility abroad. The dispute over Hong Kong has been resolved – we lost. We can learn from that episode that treaties with states are only as binding insofar as the other party is willing and able to enforce it. We aren’t, and our only choice left is for us to move on.¹

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I have visited Taiwan, and I have Taiwanese friends. It is a beautiful country which refutes the CCP’s case that liberalism and democracy are somehow incompatible with ‘Chinese culture’. But Taiwan is simply not our responsibility. It wasn’t a century ago when it was conquered by Japan, and isn’t today. We cannot strangle our economy, let alone risk the lives of our young men, to save Taiwan from becoming the richest province of a new superpower. In any case, there is simply no indication that Taiwan is prepared to defend itself in the way their circumstances require. Taiwan’s population geography — its population overwhelmingly concentrated in the lowlands facing China — would not facilitate an Ukraine-style war of attrition should the People’s Liberation Army successfully make landing. A Taiwan serious about survival would resemble Israel; it currently risks becoming Nagorno-Karabakh.

Staying out of the Sino-American conflict might earn short-term opprobrium, but nobody holds neutrality in the Great War against Holland and Spain, or holds France’s abstention from Iraq against them. Indeed, history has now judged these three cases of pragmatism as wise, and the moralism that led their peers hurtling into pointlessly destructive conflicts as distinctly unwise.

There is a dire need for a reassessment in British foreign policy. Brexit has shut off any appealing prospect of working with a bolstered European Union. Mentions of the ‘Special Relationship’ draw either a blank look or a cringe from Americans. Immigrants have brought with them the preoccupations of their home countries. Currently, the impact is limited to riots in our city centres, but as their numbers and influence grow, so too will the pressure to engage with and meddle in the affairs of their homelands. Despite our reduced stature, our politicians continue to hector other nations about their human rights records. But why does it matter to us if a corrupt civilian government or a corrupt military government run Niger, Gabon, or Sudan?

We need to refocus narrowly onto the interests of the British nation. Beyond this, our position should be polite disinterest in the internal affairs of other nations. Whatever political system foreigners suffer under is a matter for them. Even meddling on behalf of the oppressed peoples of the world wins us only their resentment. The natural impulse of any self-respecting nationalist is to kick back at a moralising foreigner. A century on from Britain suppressing the African slave trade, the descendants of the same slavers are elected president and demand we pay them reparations.²

This doesn’t mean trying to set ourselves up as leading some new axis, as Macron wishes the EU to become. Nor am I a defeatist: we need not throw away our advantages, like Trident and our seat the UN Security Council. A significant part of the Civil Service would have Britain disembowel herself for international goodboy points. Trying to cuddle up to the middling powers of the world is quite pointless.

Towards the United States, our relationship should be friendly, but not subservient. There should be no rush to shutter the thirteen American bases on British soil or quit NATO. Our information sharing programmes should continue (New Zealand’s lack of interest in confronting China hasn’t pushed them out of Five Eyes, after all). I am happy to even continue supporting Ukraine: quite aside from invading countries we had assured the independence of, Russia is the main source of cybercrime against British businesses, and their security services like to murder our citizens. This behaviour, and the Russian state’s hysterical paranoia towards us — bizarrely, Russian state propaganda seems to portray the United Kingdom as their main geopolitical opponent, not the United States — makes normalising relations nigh on impossible for the time being. Otherwise, we should operate on a basis of friendship and commerce to all nations not actively hostile towards us.

British power can only be restored with economic revival. Restoring rationality and self-interest to foreign policy is part of this. It’s time to for us to return Venezuela’s stolen gold. Let’s recognise the Emirate of Afghanistan, and exchange ambassadors with Syria. Look at the sanctions we currently impose: what dispute do we have with Burundi? Or Nicaragua? Or Guinea-Bissau? 

British priorities must be economic growth and the preservation of British territory.³ Other countries’ business is for them.

1. The Uyghur’s situation of being demographically replaced in their homeland is a tragedy we all can empathise with. But it is neither our responsibility nor within our ability to rescue them. It is not so much a genocide than a programme of settler colonisation which has played out across the world again and again and again. The fate of the Uyghurs can no more shape our foreign relations than that of the Seminole and Pitjantjatjara.

2. In another case of the Woke being more correct than the mainstream, attempting to interfere in the behaviour of foreign countries absolutely is the legacy of imperialism. The empire in Africa was fuelled by wars on slave traders. Pre-imperial Britain didn’t bother itself with the judicial processes of the Qing dynasty or minority rights in the Mughal Empire.

3. As an aside, it is long overdue that British citizens should have the right to freely move to our overseas territories, which they pay to maintain. All Britons should be able to start a new life in the Caribbean, the South Pacific or the Tropics for the cost of a plane ticket.