Opinion | Boris, have you lost your marbles?

By Philip Yeung, A university teacher

PKY480@gmail.com

Boris Johnson never ceases to amaze. He has bungled Brexit, mishandled the Covid crisis, and now he has poked his fat finger in the eye of the Chinese dragon.

In case you haven't heard, Boris has dispatched a British naval strike force to the South China Sea to join the US to fish in troubled waters. We know that Boris is a crackpot, but this is beyond crack-pottery.

His defense secretary explained, hypocritically, that this gesture is not intended to provoke China. But if this is not in-the-face provocation, what is? Its military risks are unpredictable.

At a time when Britain is slashing its humanitarian aid budget to the world's marginalized people by more than 500 million pounds, he chooses to splash British cash on what can only be described as a hollow and spiteful act.

Boris never does anything by halves. It is not enough that the strike force is deployed, but that it will be deployed permanently in that part of the world. Permanently? Is he looking for a fight to give the newly launched aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth II its virgin battle at sea? If the world is lucky, British battleships will be floating around aimlessly in the vast Pacific Ocean burning up precious British pounds until Boris exits stage right. Accidents do happen.

Einstein has a famous definition for insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

It doesn't take an Einstein to come up with a definition for stupidity: "Doing something that hurts others but doesn't help yourself."

What are British battleships doing more than 10,000 kilometers away from UK shores? British is an expired empire, with no more strategic or territorial interests, real or imagined, in Asia. Britain, in case you forget, doesn't rule the waves anymore.

So, why is Boris doing it? We can only surmise. First, he is a megalomaniac showman who lives for grand gestures, the grander the better, and there's nothing grander than sending off a battle fleet with great fanfare to the other side of the earth.

What's more, he is doing it entirely without any Chinese provocation. China hasn't stepped on any British toes. In fact, things were looking positively rosy between the two countries with China eager to boost his trade ties with the UK until Boris foolishly swallowed the Trump bait and began hitting China below the belt. He has been dealt a good hand but has misplayed it. Instead, he is out looking for trouble. His people should question him: How does this serve our national interests?

Post-Brexit, Britain's footprint in world affairs has shrunk considerably. It is in dire need of expanding its markets to non-EU economies, and there is no market bigger or more lucrative than China's. By a series of miscalculations, Boris is committing ritual economic suicide.

By now, the whole world knows that Boris is the circus clown, always good for a laugh and a soundbite but little else. He has high entertainment value, but zero economic or strategic value. Boris is not boring, that is his selling point. But the business of government is often boring, and therefore not really his cup of English tea.

This latest idiocy says two things about Boris: First, his cupboards for governing ideas are bare. Boris wrote a book on Winston Churchill and flatters himself that he is Churchill 2.0, harboring fantasies about former imperial glory. Poor Churchill must be turning over in his grave at the hijinks of this great pretender. Churchill was a historical product of the Second World War. Boris was born in the wrong age and with the wrong genes. He is no Churchill.

Far from an act of courage, this South China Sea misadventure is an act of sycophancy. It is transparent that Boris is bending over backwards to curry favor with the United States, hankering after a special relationship and a preferential trade deal. He and Blair came from the same kennel, both cuddly poodles to US leaders. Blair became a political and social pariah for his folly in Iraq. Boris will follow suit in another theatre.

The British foreign secretary denied that sending battleships to the South China coast is an act of provocation. But what if the Chinese navy were to dispatch a battle fleet to the strait separating Argentina and the contested Falkland Islands or the Malvinas Islands? Boris will see this as an act of war.

The hallmark of a narcissist is that he is constitutionally incapable of thinking in other people's shoes, for he is the center of the universe.

I truly feel sorry for the British people, to have this shallow, self-centered showman inflicted on them at a time when they are dying for smart leaders to negotiate an increasingly complex world. They are stuck with an empty barrel that knows how to make a lot of noise but not much else. If Brexit is his first major blunder, the suicidal break with China is decidedly his deadlier second.

The election of Boris Johnson, much like the election of Donald Trump, is an indictment against the democratic system. It rewards egotists who know how to hog the limelight or play to the crowd, not those who can attend to the serious business of government.

Since moving into Downing Street, Boris has fathered two children. My advice to Boris is: keep making babies, not war. That's the most productive thing he has done to date. Egotists are not good at building relationships, only at breaking them. Boris has wrecked two of Britain's most vital international relationships, first the EU, and now China. All his eggs are now in the America basket, and what an accident-prone basket that is. He will go down in history as Eton's biggest disappointment and embarrassment.

America has managed to evict a madman from the White House. It's time the UK showed its naughty, nutty tenant at No.10 out the door.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.