After initially deciding to embrace Huawei, Britain has completely changed course. The United Kingdom will further restrict and even block China’s Huawei telecommunications firm, in fact a front for a signal intelligence operation, from building out its 5G network.
Speaking on Monday, a government minister confirmed that GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA, has delivered a new report on Huawei’s viability as a security-compatible 5G vendor. This follows the introduction of U.S. sanctions on Huawei and reflects fears that those sanctions will force Huawei to use less secure hardware. As widely reported, GCHQ’s report warns that the sanctions and Huawei’s unwillingness to address other security concerns mean its inclusion in Britain’s 5G network is now high risk. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will likely use this report as an excuse to block Huawei’s access.
But it’s ultimately not GCHQ’s new report that prompted Britain’s about-face here. As I noted in 2019, a previous GCHQ report had already documented how China intended to use Huawei as an espionage tool — namely, by using built-in software flaws to allow backdoor access to communications. When caught, Huawei would have claimed these flaws were technical errors rather than signal intelligence tools. Britain has also been granted U.S. intelligence evincing Chinese intelligence control over and support for Huawei.
So what we’re actually seeing here is Johnson’s altered consideration of whether Britain can balance good relations with China with its other priority foreign policy interests. The Conservative Party leader had, until recently, believed that balancing act was possible.
Not any more.
One reason, believe it or not, is the coronavirus. London isn’t simply angry that the pandemic has wreaked havoc across the British and global economies. What’s really aggravated the government is how China has responded to that chaos with absurd public relations stunts and, more importantly, by concealing information that may have prevented the virus from spreading outside Chinese borders. Britain also recognizes the U.S. intelligence community’s evidence that China engaged in a cover-up related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. (Whether this cover-up was motivated by the virus escaping from the lab or for some other reason is still not clear.)
The top line: Whereas London previously regarded Beijing as untrustworthy (but not so untrustworthy as to be an unfeasible major trade partner), China’s agenda is now seen as actively malevolent toward British interests.
It’s not just about the coronavirus, however.
Britain is also alarmed by Xi Jinping’s striking aggression in Hong Kong. China’s new security law for the former British colony has shredded the binding Sino-British declaration treaty, which requires that China respect Hong Kong’s democratic rule of law until at least 2047. In violating this, Xi has shown that he is willing to undercut even the most formal of treaty commitments. This concern fits the increasingly uncomfortable reality of China’s semi-genocidal policy against its Uighur Muslim population. Put simply, Britain finds it increasingly impossible to recognize China for anything other than what it is — a tyrannical regime with no regard for anything other than Xi and the sacred Communist Party.
Finally, there’s the American factor. Long pressured by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cut links with Huawei, Johnson now recognizes that it will be nearly impossible to balance that special relationship with a semi-friendly China policy. This understanding finds added weight in the government’s recognition that U.S. policy over Huawei will not change substantially even if Joe Biden takes office in 2021. Britain also sees the rapidly rising U.S.-China naval tensions in the South China Sea. Having committed to deploying its new aircraft carrier on an inaugural patrol through those waters with the U.S. Navy, Britain cannot risk being seen by Washington as a fair-weather friend amid possibly approaching conflict.
True, Britain’s policy isn’t quite yet at Trump administration levels of China-skepticism. Yet. A new British sanctions regime introduced this week has targeted human rights violators from Russia to Saudi Arabia, but notably absent was China. Here, we see a fleeting effort to keep Chinese trade going even when Huawei falls.
But the trend lines are clear. Don’t expect Xi to be having afternoon tea with the Queen anytime soon. The rudeness that Xi’s entourage showed during that last 2016 visit (see below) now finds reflection in the constellation of Chinese foreign policy.
