NEW: Rishi Sunak's China Strategy
NEW: Rishi Sunak's China Strategy
A Beijing to Britain transcript and note
Hello,
As we positioned over a fortnight ago, all Prime Ministerial hopefuls should have their own coherent approach to China. Following negative coverage of his alleged views towards the UK’s relationship with China, former Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been working on toughening his anti-Chinese Communist Party credentials.
At Beijing to Britain, we’ve got our hands on Sunak’s press release announcing his new approach to China, which includes four policy ideas. We will run the press release in its entirety so readers can form their own view - and will keep an eye out for anything similar from Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
In short, Sunak is to announce that “China and the Chinese Communist Party represent the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century”.
He will also propose four policy ideas:
Ban Confucius Institutes from the UK
Use MI5 to help British businesses counter Chinese spying
Create a NATO-style international cooperation to face down Chinese threats
Examine the case for banning Chinese acquisitions of key British assets, including strategically sensitive tech firms
Press release in full
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Rishi Sunak said:
“China is the biggest-long term threat to Britain and the world’s economic and national security - as the Director General of MI5 and Director of the FBI have said.
“At home, they are stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities. And abroad, they are propping up Putin’s fascist invasion of Ukraine by buying his oil and attempting to bully their neighbours, including Taiwan.
“They are saddling developing countries with insurmountable debt and using this to seize their assets or hold a diplomatic gun to their heads. They torture, detain and indoctrinate their own people, including in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, in contravention of their human rights. And they have continually rigged the global economy in their favour by suppressing their currency.
“Enough is enough. For too long, politicians in Britain and across the West have rolled out the red carpet and turned a blind eye to China’s nefarious activity and ambitions.
“I will change this on Day 1 as PM. I will stop China taking over our universities, and get British companies and public institutions the cyber-security they need. And I will work with President Biden and other world leaders to transform the West’s resilience to the threat China poses.”
POLICY ANNOUNCEMENTS
Banning Confucius Institutes
Rishi Sunak would close all 30 of China’s Confucius Institutes in the UK - the highest number in the world. As recently as May 2022 the Open University launched the ‘world’s first online Confucius Institute’. Almost all UK government spending on Mandarin language teaching at school is channelled through university-based Confucius Institutes, thereby promoting Chinese soft power.
Implement the Higher Education Bill amendment which mandates that British universities must disclose any foreign funding partnerships worth more than £50,000.
Conduct a review of all UK-Chinese research partnerships which unwittingly assist China’s Made in China 2025 strategy to dominate the technologies of the future or that have military applications.
Create a NATO-style international alliance to defend against Chinese technological aggression
We will build a new international alliance of free nations to tackle Chinese cyber-threats and share best practice in technology security.
Last year the UK led the international community in condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s global cyber attacks targeting people all across the world.
Now the UK will help lead the world in creating a new alliance to stand up to Chinese technological aggression.
This will build on our existing security partnerships with democratic nations, such as Five Eyes and AUKUS.
Given that there is evidence to suggest China has targeted countries from the United States to India, Rishi is confident that he can create a broad alliance including countries from all over the world.
And growing interest in international security cooperation is underscored by Japanese interest in pursuing greater intelligence sharing with Five Eyes.
As part of this new security alliance, the UK will coordinate efforts to influence international standards and norms on cybersecurity, telecommunications security, and preventing intellectual property theft.
MI5 support for British businesses and British IP
Expand MI5’s reach to provide greater support to British businesses and universities to counter Chinese industrial espionage.
Work across government and with security services to build a toolkit to help companies protect their intellectual property.
Protecting key British assets
Examine the need to prevent Chinese acquisitions of key British assets including strategically sensitive tech firms.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Rishi Sunak strongly supported the National Security and Investment Act which gives the Secretary of State for BEIS the power to intervene in takeover of UK firms in sensitive areas with dual use applications or where intellectual property is at risk. These powers were first invoked on Wednesday to block Beijing Infinite Vision Technology Company acquiring vision sensing technology from Manchester University. Rishi would like to see this invoked more readily when bright new UK tech start-ups are under threat.
Rishi undertook extensive work on threats to UK security, including writing a report in 2017 on the vital need to protect the internet infrastructure provided by undersea cables from interference by the Russians and Chinese, which was endorsed by former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis, former Chief of the UK Defence Staff General Lord Houghton, and former Security Adviser to the Prime Minister Robert Hannigan.
U.K. defence spending is already projected to reach around 2.5% of GDP by 2030 as a result of the investments that Rishi Sunak made in programmes such as the Future Combat Air System and the AUKUS nuclear deal – a pact China described as ‘extremely irresponsible’.
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Reception so far
Sunak’s briefing was sent out at 12:30 yesterday, and a counter briefing from Truss’s team followed four hours later.
The Truss campaign was quick to question Sunak’s new pledges, with IPAC’s Sir Iain Duncan Smith calling the announcement “surprising”.
“Over the last two years, the Treasury has pushed hard for an economic deal with China. This is despite China sanctioning myself and four UK parliamentarians.
“Despite China brutally cracking down on peaceful democracy campaigners in Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan, illegally occupying the South China Sea, committing genocide on the Uyghurs and increasing its influence in our universities.
“After such a litany, I have one simple question, where have you been over the last two years?”
A spokesperson for Liz Truss said:
“Liz has strengthened Britain’s position on China since becoming Foreign Secretary and helped lead the international response to increased Chinese aggression.
“This will only continue when she becomes prime minister and seeks to expand her network of liberty around the world.”
The Telegraph and the i both ran this as a front page story, and a few of the other publications carry further details. Some papers ran with Team Sunak’s line that “nine of the 31 Confucius centres in Britain were established when Ms Truss was an education minister between 2012 and 2014.” The Sun added “[Sunak’s] new shift will see last year’s landmark defence review, which concluded that Russia posed the bigger threat to the UK, be sent back to the drawing board.”
Concluding thoughts
This is a clear effort from Team Sunak to win some of the China Hawk voters from Truss and dispel negative briefing that he is too soft on China.
As with Truss’s China policies, these are not ideas that are meant to impress think tankers, China analysts or business leaders. They are designed to grab headlines, go on the offensive, and show Sunak shares the Conservative Member view that China is the number one threat facing Britain.
They are headline ideas, not costed, and many are hard to measure. Most of them are not new - as readers will remember, Confucius Institutes were recently under intense Parliamentary scrutiny and the wording appears borrowed from Alicia Kearns’ recent amendment on the issue, while the proposed Technology Nato-type alliance is one word away from Truss’s own ‘Economic Nato’ idea. However, as with Truss, if Sunak become the next Prime Minister it will be worth watching closely to see how these policies are actually implemented.
Today’s note shows why it is so essential to have a clear understanding of how China is discussed in Westminster.
One last thing - your writer noted many of the reports include the detail that in 2014, Truss said she was “delighted to support the IoE Confucius Institute – in partnership with Hanban”, adding: “The Confucius Institute and its network of Confucius classrooms will put in place a strong infrastructure for Mandarin.” Wonder where they got that from…?
The two contenders to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader fight to outdo each other's anti-China credentials