Foreign Secretary to China, Arm IPO China concerns, China LinkedIn Spy
A Beijing to Britain bonus briefing
Hello,
“The Foreign Office has told government officials not to use the term “hostile state” in case it upsets China,” reported The Times on Monday morning, citing how the Department had replaced the term with “hostile actors”, and “hostile state activity” with “state threats.” In the Daily Mail’s coverage, a number of China-sceptic MPs bashed the Foreign Office, with Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Alicia Kearns asking if “China [is] now policing the inside of the Foreign Office too?,” and IPAC’s Tim Loughton adding “The FCDO should concentrate less on language and more on taking robust action to combat this clear and present threat the CCP poses.”
So where did The Times’ original accusation that the Foreign Office’s “[e]ffective ban in goverment (sic) papers is seen as a sop to China?” come from? Perhaps from Iain Duncan Smith MP, who when asked for comment by the paper for the article, said banning the term was “all about China”. No further evidence was provided by Duncan Smith nor The Times to justify that claim.
The truth appears to be, as usual, less exciting. In 2021, the Home Office started consulting on legislation to tackle “Counter State Threats (Hostile State Activity).” In its glossary of key terms, the document explained (bold added by Beijing to Britain):
State Threats – Is a term used to describe overt or covert action orchestrated by foreign governments which falls short of general armed conflict between states but nevertheless seeks to undermine or threaten the safety and interests of the UK, including: the integrity of its democracy, its public safety, its military advantage and its reputation or economic prosperity. While the term hostile state activity (HSA) has generally been used to describe the threat, it is often read as being activity conducted by hostile states rather than hostile activity by states as intended. In this consultation and through to the legislation the Government is adopting new terminology to describe the threat.
So, this change is not the result of some effort to appease the Chinese Government via the famously well-trodden diplomatic path of … modifying internal Whitehall memos and messages(?) It is the end product of a change put in motion two years ago.
Of actual value and worth looking at in detail are British technology giant Arm’s IPO documents, which we examine in today's briefing.
In its F-1 filed on Monday, the company provided the following warning:
“Our concentration of revenue from the PRC market makes us particularly susceptible to economic and political risks affecting the PRC, which could be exacerbated by tensions between (on the one hand) the U.S. or the U.K. and (on the other hand) the PRC with respect to trade and national security.”
This makes it the first company in my (short) memory to warn so explicitly about the impact tensions between the UK and China could have on its business, and to make such as clear case for why firms need to be watching this bilateral closely.
— Sam Hogg, Editor
In today’s briefing
Foreign Secretary to visit China
Coverage of the Chinese spy using LinkedIn
What Westminster needs to know about BRICS, Singapore
Arm’s IPO documents and China concerns
One last thing: a new segment