Britain's path against China is a wrong path

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continues to shape UK's foreign policy pertaining to China as one of strategic competition.

Having symbolically "ended" the UK's "era of golden relations" with China, Sunak now publicly defines Beijing as an "epoch-defining challenge" to the "rules-based order." Although of course less hawkish than Liz Truss, who sought to define China explicitly as a "threat," the UK nonetheless uncritically dances to the American tune in its foreign policy in a way which is fundamentally detrimental to the national interest.

On March 13, a Trilateral Summit in the US was held with Sunak, US President Joe Biden and Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, where they sought to flesh out the details of the AUKUS alliance, involving the construction of nuclear-powered submarines, which according to the meeting will be stationed at an Indian Ocean base in Perth. Sunak claims that the agreement will bring jobs to the United Kingdom, and states they will be built by BAE systems and Rolls Royce at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, coincidentally a seat the Conservatives gained from Labour and are aiming to hold on to.

Despite once having perceived China as an important economic partner in the midst of Brexit, the UK now borders on depicting Beijing in adversarial terms and has committed itself to following the United States in a global military struggle, cloaked in the rhetoric of neo-imperialism which touches upon the "good old days" of Empire when the Britain was an unchallengeable naval superpower which of course wantonly imposed its will and interests on countries, most notably including China. In doing so, Britain's official narrative of imperialism is not that it was brutal, oppressive and exploitative, but a morally exceptionalist force for good that "helped" the countries it occupied.

The decline of the Empire, however, in the latter half of the 20th century, produced an identity crisis in a changing Britain that has been unable to truly reconcile. Britain has not been able to "find its place" in a post-imperial world and as a result could not truly accept integration into Europe, which ultimately produced Brexit. Now, having taken that path, the Conservative Party has reframed itself as a populist-nationalist force which draws upon imperial nostalgia and frames Britain as a "resurgent" and "independent" power, eschewing pragmatism and common sense in its foreign policy in favor of pure ideology.

In doing so, the UK has signed itself up to the US agenda on China in spite of its best interests, and has gone full throttle as the leading cheerleader of the Ukraine cause in Europe. However, this reckless foreign policy course comes amidst a gravely deteriorating economic situation at home. For years, and especially since Brexit, Britain's GDP is stagnating, inflation is soaring, incomes are shrinking and public services are shrinking. The domestic outlook for the UK has in fact never looked bleaker for decades, and this stands in sharp contrast to the triumphalist and exceptionalist rhetoric that frames Britain as a global power seeking to put an "assertive" China back in its place, comments that of course have no standing in reality whatsoever.

The United Kingdom should be pursuing a pragmatic and practical foreign policy that takes into account changing geopolitical realities, as opposed to following the United States in a reckless, self-destructive and globally destabilizing crusade, which contrary to their rhetoric, directly threatens the prosperity, wellbeing and security of the United Kingdom. The idea that British security is contingent on events in faraway oceans is wishful thinking, and the gains the UK could have by embracing China as a partner, as opposed to a competitor, are far more than one-time contracts to build fanciful nuclear submarines.

The UK has willingly imposed staggering costs on itself by making the US' lapdog, including derailing and increasing the cost of its 5G rollout by banning Huawei, vetoing the takeover of a failing semiconductor firm on America's demand, and many more examples.

Sunak of course vows to keep "cooperation" open with China, but what does this even mean when a hostile environment has been created? And Washington ultimately comes the shots? Sure, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi has been invited to the coronation of King Charles III, which is a nice gesture, but it won't bring jobs and growth to Britain, and doesn't change the reality that Britain is ultimately on the wrong path, one that is comprehensively sending the country backward and, in the name of imperial nostalgia, is in fact hastening British decline in a myriad of ways.

(The author, a postgraduate student of Chinese studies at Oxford University, is an English analyst on international relations. The views are his own.)