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The UK government has said it wants to boost trade with China despite warning that Beijing has been increasing efforts to spy on Britain and to undermine its democracy and economic security.
As part of a wider National Security Strategy that warned mainland Britain risked “coming under direct threat” from military opponents, ministers published a long-awaited study into the risks posed by China to the UK.
Foreign secretary David Lammy said that China represented the UK’s “most complex bilateral relationship” — but said it needed a “consistent” relationship with the country that is its third-largest trading partner.
“China’s power is an inescapable fact,” Lammy said in a statement to MPs. “Not engaging with China is therefore no choice at all”.
The report, published on Tuesday, said the UK should “seek a trade and investment relationship” that “supports secure and resilient growth”.
However, it simultaneously warned that “instances of China’s espionage, interference in our democracy and the undermining of our economic security have increased in recent years”.
The military risks facing the UK were also laid out in the National Security Strategy, also published on Tuesday, which raised the prospect of a direct attack on British soil.
“Some adversaries are laying the foundations for future conflict, positioning themselves to move quickly to cause major disruption to our energy and/or supply chains, to deter us from standing up to their aggression,” it said.
“For the first time in many years, we have to actively prepare for the possibility of the UK homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in a wartime scenario.”
Sir Keir Starmer, who is at the Nato meeting in The Hague, has pledged to raise UK defence spending to 5 per cent by 2035, taking into account adjacent investments into cyber security and border control.
The challenge of balancing the UK’s relationship with China was laid bare on Tuesday by a powerful US Congressional group warning about Beijing’s plans for a giant new embassy in London.
There are concerns the planned Chinese embassy’s location on the edge of the City of London financial district will place it close to many sensitive data cables, including ones used by US banks.
The Congressional select committee on the Chinese Communist Party raised concerns that the building, which is going through the planning approval process, posed an “unacceptable intelligence threat not only for Londoners, but for the UK, [security alliance] Five Eyes, and Europe as a whole”.
It added: “We have yet to receive credible assurances that the risks posed by the PRC’s so-called mega-embassy in London can be sufficiently mitigated.”
Lammy said that the Chinese Embassy’s planning permission was a legal process he could not interfere in and disputed an allegation of cutting deals with Beijing.
“There are no grubby deals, on any issues, and certainly not in relation to the embassy,” Lammy said.
After the foreign secretary said that much of the UK’s China audit was classified, Emily Thornberry, a Labour MP and chair of the foreign affairs select committee, asked that the government set up a secure reading room so MPs could see the details.
Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, questioned the UK government’s secrecy around the audit and the focus on trade.
“A lot of what will have come up in the consultation process will have been negative but not necessarily sensitive — but there would be a risk it embarrasses Beijing,” Pulford said.
“The idea that trade with China will rescue the UK economy deserves to be questioned. What we’re seeing in the UK’s desperation for growth is the ‘Treasurisation’ of government policy even extending to foreign policy now.”
