Daily Times

Steve Hilton hates the UK’s nuclear deal with China. This former policy advisor to Prime Minister (PM) David Cameron believes cosying up to “a rogue state just as bad as Russia or Iran” will bring the UK much grief down the road. The Anglo-Chinese agreement on October 21 to build a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point, Somerset triggered his outrage.

China’s state-owned General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) will foot a third of the £ 18 billion cost, while the UK’s EDF Energy will cover the rest. The warming of bilateral ties did not stop here either. On his recent state visit to the UK, the first by a Chinese president since 2005, Xi Jinping and Cameron signed business deals worth over £ 60 billion. Starting in January next year, the UK will also introduce a low cost, two-year tourist visa for Chinese citizens.

British Chancellor George Osborne, the nuclear deal architect, hailed Jinping’s trip as the beginning of a “golden era” in Anglo-Chinese cooperation. Cameron, similarly, wants the uK to overtake Germany and become China’s “best partner in the west”. Hilton, though, just does not understand why “we are sucking up to them rather than standing up to them as we should be”. He is not alone in his criticism of Jinping’s royal treatment on this trip. Between Queen Elizabeth II and Cameron, the UK rolled out the red carpet all the way to Beijing. British politicians and bureaucrats peering through the US’s foreign policy lens are furious at Cameron’s love affair with China. They do not believe Jinping merits preferential treatment for national security and human rights reasons.

When complete in 2025, Hinkley Point will create 25,000 jobs and power around six million British homes. If China, often accused of state-funded cyber warfare, plants software backdoors into the control system, this lobby believes the Communist Party could use these to ‘arm-twist’ Britain in case of a diplomatic row. A shared nuclear plant, hence, is a big no-no.

Furthermore, they point to China’s suppression of free speech and political dissidence as an affront to western democratic values. Also, since China keeps its most profitable business sectors such as banking and healthcare out of the UK’s reach on the pretext of national security, why should Cameron be so cooperative? London, however, is more bullish about China’s role in the world than all NATO capitals barring Berlin. Perhaps the UK’s past as a failed empire anchors this foreign policy realism, something the US has no experience of. The country is painfully aware of the futility of imposing its moral values on other cultures. Also, the UK, unlike the US, has never been resource rich and has always needed to seek out foreign concessions to power its industry. All these factors added subtle shades to British diplomacy that are missing from the US’s black-or-white version.

Two statements sum up the UK’s outlook on China in the 21st century. First, Osborne claims, “We want a golden relationship with China that will help foster a golden decade for this country.” Second, Lord Sassoon, chair of the China-Britain Business Council, parries Hilton minded Britons by asking “Why would they [China] want to turn off a nuclear power station in which they had ownership?”

Sure, the British government is not giving up on persuading China to mend its human rights record but such conversations will take place in private from now on. Cameron, too, is unlikely to repeat his 2012 meeting with the Dalai Lama that had him effectively banned from Beijing for over a year. Nor should anyone expect press dispatches from 10 Downing Street addressing Tibet, Taiwan or Hong Kong anytime soon.

Washington, for its part, views the UK’s bonhomie towards China with a mixture of contempt and confusion. US officials fail to understand Cameron’s “constant accommodation” of Beijing while they work to cap China’s runaway financial influence. The White House was also not pleased when the UK, in March, broke away from the covert US boycott of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to join as a founding member. The US’ domestic conversation about China similarly crackles with suspicion despite a half trillion dollars worth of mutual trade. Some US companies complain they are being squeezed out of Chinese markets after their technology trickled down to cheaper, local rivals. China is also a heated election season issue among Republicans, who condemn the country for “stealing American jobs” and “undermining US interests”.

My, though, how times have changed since the halcyon days of the British Empire. Rewind to 1860 and British warships humbled Qing China in the two opium wars. The empire, then, took huge land concessions and tributes from the Chinese emperors in return for peace. Now, it is China’s money that makes the world go round and the UK is no exception. Also, I daresay, if the bilateral balance of trade was not so overwhelmingly in China’s favour, the US would be far less grumpy as well.

The writer is a freelance columnist and audio engineer based in Islamabad