Keir Starmer is stepping up ‘Operation Kowtow’, his reckless bid to cosy up to China – at the worst possible moment for Britain’s national security.
Having gifted China its new mega-embassy in London – the ‘nest of spies’, as it has been dubbed – the Prime Minister is heading to Beijing today in the hope of being rewarded for a year of abject appeasement.
‘Kowtow Keir’ will arrive in a Beijing buzzing with intrigue after the weekend removal of Zhang Youxia, China’s highest-ranking general, who has reportedly been accused of leaking nuclear secrets to America and taking bribes.
Zhang, a long-time ally of Xi Jinping, is only the latest target of the president’s purge that has decimated the top military leadership and is unmatched since the dark days of Mao Zedong.
Starmer will have in tow a posse of businessfolk and Chancellor Rachel Reeves for the first visit by a British prime minister since Theresa May in 2018.
But talk of a ‘reset’ in relations is not only dangerous, but desperately naive.
For a reality check, Starmer’s entourage will need only glance at their burner phones and throwaway laptops – essential kit for any visit to Xi’s hostile surveillance state.
Not to mention, ahead of the visit, China has been accused of establishing a network of more than 75 covert influence outposts embedded in British businesses and universities.
Like a schoolyard bully, Xi has no respect for the weakness that defines Starmer’s China policy, writes Ian Williams
The site for China’s new ‘mega-embassy’ in London, which Labour approved despite security concerns
These clandestine operations are used to ‘cultivate elites, shape debate and suppress criticism of Beijing’, according to the UK’s Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – a parliamentary body dedicated to scrutinising the government’s China policy.
Aside from the obvious security concerns, in this climate of enormous geopolitical uncertainty, Starmer’s determination to reach out to Beijing could scarcely be more foolhardy.
The Chinese Communist Party is so opaque it is hard to say whether Xi’s constant purging of his generals is a sign of weakness or strength.
In October last year, eight top generals were expelled from the Communist Party on corruption charges.
But while Zhang had been portrayed as a cautionary voice on Taiwan (he was in favour of delaying an invasion), Xi seems more impatient to take the island – ordering his generals to be ready to invade by next year.
This has left Taiwanese officials this week scrambling to understand what it all means for their security as China steps up its military intimidation. And President Trump’s actions in Venezuela and his threats against Greenland could well encourage Beijing’s aggression in its own backyard.
Xi is meanwhile confident he has the upper-hand in the trade war with America and is increasingly flexing his military muscles in partnership with his ‘good friend’ Vladimir Putin, whose aggression in Ukraine would be unsustainable without China’s help.
Like a schoolyard bully, Xi has no respect for the weakness that defines Starmer’s China policy. The ledger of appeasement in the months leading to this week’s visit is chilling.
Demonstrators in London, many from regions oppressed by China such as Tibet and Hong Kong, protesting the plans for the new Chinese embassy
The Chinese leader had refused to confirm Starmer’s visit until after he’d given the embassy the green light. He had also petulantly refused to give the British Embassy in Beijing permission for essential refurbishment.
That smacks of blackmail, not the birth of a new ‘golden era’ of business relations as some around Starmer are proclaiming.
There was also the collapse of a high-profile spy trial last September, which the Government was accused of deliberately torpedoing to avoid embarrassing Beijing.
Ministers denied the accusation, but a report by Parliament concluded the handling of the case was ‘shambolic’.
In December, it was further revealed that Foreign Office computers were hacked in an attempt to gain access to sensitive files by a gang known as Storm-1849.
Multiple officials confirmed privately China was behind it, but – in a cowardly bid to avoid offending the country’s president – ministers refused publicly to blame Beijing.
In short, ministers have tied themselves in knots to avoid labelling China a ‘threat‘, even though that is blindingly obvious and Beijing clearly defines Britain as an enemy.
Then there are the glaring human rights violations.
Take Jimmy Lai, a fearless campaigner for democracy in Hong Kong, convicted in December of trumped-up security offences that included the Orwellian charge of ‘colluding with foreign forces‘.
The newspaper publisher and British citizen faces life imprisonment, with his sentencing possibly coinciding with Starmer’s trip to Beijing.
Lai has not only become a symbol of Hong Kong’s descent into tyranny, but also the contempt with which Beijing holds the UK.
The Government’s support for Lai and its criticism of his persecution has, at times, appeared weak and half-hearted.
Meanwhile, Britain has largely stood by while Beijing has trashed promises made at the time of the 1997 handover to respect Hong Kong’s freedoms.
Starmer thinks he can have it both ways, separating thorny security and human rights issues from trade and business.
He has called for deeper business ties, telling a City banquet that China was ‘a defining force in technology, trade and global governance’ and that it would be a ‘dereliction of duty’ not to engage – and his trip to Beijing is the culmination of that strategy.
Yet China has long regarded trade, investment and market access as means of coercion. That is clear in Beijing’s recent weaponisation of rare earths, a group of critical minerals essential to high-tech industries ranging from fighter jets to mobile phones, electric vehicles, wind turbines and batteries, over which China has a near monopoly.
Worse still, economists are warning of a ‘second China shock’ to Western economies this year.
The first followed Beijing joining the World Trade Organisation in 2001, which led to the mass loss of firms and jobs as industries shifted to China and the West faced a flood of cheap Chinese exports.
This time, Beijing is attempting to dominate technologies of the future, from renewables and robotics to biotechnology and AI via massive state subsidies, which are creating enormous over-capacity, distorting trade as China looks to dump its surplus (worth $1.19trillion last year) on world markets and decimate rivals. All the while seeking to impede Western competitors.
The dependencies China is creating are not an accident, but part of an explicit policy, spelt out by Xi and designed to give Beijing greater leverage. This is a perversion of any notion of free trade, where everyone supposedly benefits. China wants to sell everything and buy nothing.
When I was looking for a title for my most recent book, I settled on Vampire State, since the analogy of the blood-sucking bat seemed so fitting for a country that has long bent or ignored the rules of international trade, while plundering technology and know-how via industrial-scale cyber espionage.
And the vampire is about to become even more thirsty, with Starmer walking blindly into its lair.
Of course, we can’t ignore China, but Starmer confuses engagement with kowtowing. Instead, the message should be robust and its delivery firm.
Starmer appears incapable of either. Instead, he will travel to Beijing with well-worn cap in hand for what stands to be a humiliating spectacle.
Ian Williams is author of Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy