If They Told You Wolverines Would Make Good House Pets, Prime Minister, Would You Believe Them?

There’s a great line in the classic movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles where Steve Martin thinks he can get rebooked on a flight and John Candy says: “If they told you wolverines would make good house pets, would you believe them?”

That came to me after reading the UK government’s trade strategy and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s statement outlining the findings of the government’s China Audit. My first reaction was, “If they told you the PRC was a normal trading partner, would you believe them?”

You can sense the desperation in both documents. Yes, we know we have to say we are going to be tougher on China given its government’s support for Russia, the fact it has inserted spies into the UK government, and its cyber attacks, and more. But please President Xi, can we also send more exports your direction?

The short answer is no. You cannot.

Well, maybe you can get more Chinese tourists to visit Buckingham palace, send a few more Cadbury bars to the mainland, and perhaps sell some financial services to help China buy up even more UK companies. But if you think for one minute that the PRC will allow the UK to expand exports of anything with any real strategic importance, you are gravely mistaken.

Xi Jinping made that clear when he stated: “Technological innovation has become the main battleground of the global playing field, and competition for tech dominance will grow unprecedentedly fierce.” This is not the sort of language normally spoken by a “trading partner.” As I wrote recently in The New York Times, we are in an industrial war and China is starting to win. That is especially true in the UK’s case.

But what is even more troubling about the Starmer government’s statements is their selfishness. On the one hand, the government thankfully has reiterated the UK’s commitment to NATO. But in contrast, with its China strategy, the government is effectively abdicating its role as a joint defender of the Western, democratic order.

The West needs to stand firm in an allied effort to push back against the PRC’s predatory techno-economic mercantilism. Otherwise, the PRC will succeed in dominating advanced technologies and industries, and the West will further deindustrialize. The PRC knows this. Divide and conquer is its modus operandi. So, of course it encourages UK leaders to visit Beijing to discuss market-access arrangements. And, of course, it not-so-subtly intones that market access and more will be taken away in a flash if the UK makes any real complaints, or heaven forbid, aligns with America. Complain, and all of sudden half of Chinese students currently paying tuition to UK universities will be gone.

The Starmer government covers its naïve and selfish pivot under the cloak of “progressive realism.” Echoing former Biden administration national security advisor Jake Sullivan, Lammy says the UK’s approach will be to “cooperate where we can and we will challenge where we must.” But cooperate on what, exactly? Climate? China is the largest emitter of greenhouse cases. Global health? This, after the PRC may have created and inadvertently let loose the COVID-19 virus while strongarming the World Health Organization to do its bidding. Cooperation is how the PRC ensnares adversaries has to blunt resistance.

In his new book Breaking the Engagement: How China Won and Lost America, China scholar David Shambaugh describes how “re-engagers” on both sides of the Atlantic have been pressing the canard that we need to cooperate with the PRC. Foreign Secretary Lammy clearly agrees, calling Chinese power an “inescapable fact” that leaves the UK with “no choice at all” but to engage. But engaging on what terms? Does he really believe dialogue will shift PRC behavior on issues of core importance to the UK? The experience of the last 15 years strongly suggests otherwise. Engagement is a trap. The PRC offers (or promises) just enough to keep countries from pushing back on its techno-economic predation.

Along these lines, the UK government’s China audit fell for the PRC line about the significant intertwining of the UK and Chinese economies, “with China being the UK’s third-largest trading partner and the second-largest source of international students for UK universities.” But China is not a “trading partner” any more than a loan shark is a financial service provider, especially given the fact that the UK runs a £39 billion annual trade deficit with China—121 percent of the UK’s total trade deficit. That is not a partner; it is a predator.

Progressive realism in economic relations with China is a fantasy. It’s time for the UK to instead view China as a strategic competitor and threat. As Kyle Reese warned Sarah Connor in The Terminator: “Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!”

In this case, “dead” means a UK economy even more deindustrialized and de-technologized than it already is; if that’s even possible. The PRC has made it clear through its actions and statements that it wants to achieve global dominance in all foundational industries, including vehicles, energy technology, chemicals, aerospace, semiconductors, machinery, and all emerging ones, including quantum, genetic-based biotech, and AI. But it is willing to leave the UK with Scotch whisky, tourism, banking, petroleum, and scrap iron. Time to abandon progressive realism in favor of strategic competition.

The PRC knows how to divide and conquer, particularly by dangling market access to Western governments and companies. The UK should not fall for this, because it will diminish the alliances necessary to effectively push back against predatory practices such as IP theft, forced tech transfer, closed domestic markets, and massive subsidies for Chinese firms. Lenin quipped that capitalists would sell the Soviet Union the rope with which to hang them. Today, desperate nations must resist the temptation to sell the PRC the rope it needs to hang their allies.

Finally, a significant finding of the UK’s China audit was a “profound lack of confidence” and a “profound lack of knowledge” within the UK government regarding China’s culture, history, and language. Yet, this trade strategy review only reinforces those shortcomings. Have the authors and other officials read what the PRC and its Communist Party organs say it wants to do? It would appear not.

The UK government’s audit has made it clear that the government wants to cut its own, self-interested deal with China. But cooperating with China “where we can” is a fool’s errand that only will entangle the UK in the PRC’s web and weaken the West’s resolve and capability to stand up to China’s efforts to dominate advanced industries and become the global hegemon.