The West must stand up to China

There is little point in the West trying to deal with China as if she were another democratic or even old-style Communist state.

Three years ago, the City Council of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory concluded an agreement with a Chinese company to lease the Port of Darwin for 99 years – and the Federal Government approved it. One wonders if they are now quite happy about the deal. Chinese companies are frequently pilot-fish for the government and this one seems no different - part of President Xi Jinping’s signature ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. Darwin is, therefore of strategic significance. So too was the involvement of Huawei in Britain’s 5-G programme. The current Tory government did two sensible things before it collectively lost its mind: conclude the exit from the EU, and dump Huawei. The involvement of Chinese companies has to be seen as just one of many strategic tools, designed to limit or eradicate capabilities of opponents, or potential opponents, ahead of a major confrontation. The Chinese understand strategy far better than most in the West, because strategy is a long-term business, requiring decisions that may not be reached for many years. With our rotating governments, short-term appointments for officials, and increasingly, the denial of our responsibilities resulting from historic relationships, we ignore anything that cannot be realised within the term of a single government. The Chinese are not troubled by such concerns: elections are an irrelevance; the Communist Party is in power for ever and President Xi is there for life. Nor do the concerns of partners concern them: they consult no allies, call no councils, heed no red cards. While we look at our watches, they look at the calendar.

This should be a matter of concern, for everywhere there are examples of Chinese malevolence. Of course, in 2019, they made the world ill. Was this an engineered virus that escaped from a laboratory? Probably. Was it a biological weapon under development that got out before it was fully ready? We will probably never know. And did the Chinese privately admit this to Western governments? Maybe – it would certainly explain the huge over-reaction to what is a virus that is dangerous, but to a very small number of people. Beyond this there are reports of the persecution and probable forced sterilisations of Uighar Muslims in the western provinces and the adoption of new laws in Hong Kong that ignore the 1997 agreement. In Ladakh, Chinese troops attempted to move the Actual Line of Control between China and India in the Himalayas, resulting in violent clashes. The growing Chinese navy has harassed a Malaysian oil drilling rig and carried out exercises around the Parata and Dongsha islands, while China continues to develop military bases across the South China Sea using artificial island construction to extend its ‘territorial waters’. In the western world, Chinese students and Chinese money are everywhere, infiltrating Universities and Think-Tanks, exerting influence under the orders of the Chinese Communist Party. In Africa, the scale of government debt to China and with it, the control over resources, is increasingly raising concern.

The Darwin initiative took place against the backdrop of widespread Chinese espionage and cyber attacks. In June last year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned Australian institutions and businesses that they were being targeted by cyber warfare – he did not mention China by name, but he did not have to. The Chinese took the point – and proved him right by imposing trade restrictions.

There is little point in the West trying to deal with China as if she were another democratic or even old-style Communist state. No benefit in using UN arbitration in disputes, since China has a P5 nation with a veto on anything and everything. Xi Jingping is the successor of the old Emperors and looks back to a time when the greatest economy in the world was that of China. For him, the restoration of that situation is merely the resumption of normality. But a normality that was interrupted by western intervention: from the Opium wars to the Tai-Ping Rebellion, from the Boxer Rising to Japanese intervention under cover of their alliance with Britain in 1914, from the annexations of Hong Kong and Macao to the Korean War. It is now time to correct and re-pay these historic humiliations, to restore face.

Xi has already taken China in a different direction from that of his predecessor Hu Jintao. The brutal suppression of the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989 was at least followed by attempts to improve economic growth, living standards and domestic stability. There was also stability in foreign policy, but this has changed completely since November 2012 when Xi became General Secretary of the CCP. He has since concentrated on establishing his own supremacy, cracking down on dissent, setting the conditions for the re-unification of China with Hong Kong, through National Security legislation, and Taiwan using his expanding intelligence services, army, navy and air force as the instruments of force projection.

If the restoration of China as the world’s greatest economy – and therefore also the leading power – what is the near to medium term objective? It is probably the unification of Taiwan with mainland China. A desire to achieve this under cover of western confusion and obsession with Covid 19 might make him move too quickly, and therefore miscalculate. What can be done? The Australians, in spite of the Trojan Horse of the Darwin Port project, seem to have a good idea. Defence spending has increased significantly – a 40% increase over the next ten years embracing new aircraft procurement, unmanned aerial platforms, submarines, frigates, electronic warfare capabilities and cyber warfare tools.

So, the question is - what will the major democracies do about it? Australia is perhaps closest to the threat and Australia’s response is to increase significantly defence spending. Scott Morrison has pledged a total A$270bn (£150bn; $186bn) to the defence budget over 10 years – a 40% increase, reaching close to 2% of GDP; it replaces a previous decade-long strategy of retrenchment. They intend to upgrade their air-to-air refuelling resilience, anti-submarine warfare, ISR and EW capabilities and cyber warfare tools. Australia also intends to purchase up to 200 long-range anti-ship missiles from the US Navy and invest in developing a hypersonic weapons system capable of travelling thousands of miles. New Zealand has also accepted the need to increase spending on defence after a long period of strategic irrelevance. Plans include NZ$ 666 million (£350 million) for the Army, Navy and Air Force for a range of capability improvements.

Will others, particularly the US under Biden, take the same view? The British government has talked deploying one of the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers to the region, but this is simply a token. What is really required is a common understanding of the Chinese strategic objectives and the level and nature of the deterrence needed to counter their ambitions – underpinned by a collective determination to respond to Chinese intelligence, economic subversion, and military ambitions in the real and the virtual worlds. Key to this is the rapid identification of strategic technologies, from semi-conductors to systems architectures like as 5G and its future developments, that must in future be controlled within our own countries and alliances and not used by China to plant worms or dormant control measures in strategic enablers like our power generation, communications, airspace control and IT networks.

This is the strategy. The issue will remain the rights of Hong Kong and Taiwan to self-determination. We have given millions of Hong Kong Chinese the right to come and live in Britain, but would we go to war? Unlikely – and with what? In spite of the recent British increase in defence spending, our armed forces are so hollowed out that putting any force into the field and keeping it there, especially on the far side of the world, is beyond us, unless we used our nuclear submarines. We must, therefore, rebuild and in the meantime, the West collectively must leave the Chinese in no doubt that aggression will have serious consequences reaction across the spectrum of diplomatic, information, and economic activity. Military consequences will be determined by who can employ them. Principally, this is the US. Would Biden go to war to defend Taiwan if she were attacked by China? And what would be the implications for US power and influence across the whole world if he did not do so?

I am indebted to the work of my old friend and colleague, Major-General Tim Cross, for much of the detail cited in this article.

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