Opinion | The new Huawei revelations reveal what we always knew

By Tom Fowdy

Around two years ago from now, the British government under Boris Johnson U-turned on its previous approval of the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei in the UK's 5G network and succumbing to US pressure, banned it. The sharp U-turn in opinion came despite a previous security approval that its risk would be manageable, and in the international environment of a sharp downturn in the west's relations with China which was triggered by a US-led blame game over covid-19. Whilst the mainstream media predictably parroted the American talking point of "security concerns", any shrewd observer could see the decision was blatantly political in nature.

And today, more evidence has emerged to support that story. Huawei was not a threat; the United States simply did not tolerate it in their coercive global campaign against the company. A recent insight published by the Times of London (no friend of China, may I add) revealed that Britain's intelligence front GCHQ had in fact said Huawei posed no espionage risk whatsoever, but that the British cabinet was met with a reported "five hour long" shouting tirade from Deputy US National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger.

Pottinger, as a matter of fact, was one of the key architects of Trump's Anti-China foreign policy in a number of areas. One of the most fanatical voices against Beijing in the administration, not only was he instrumental, as this piece shown, in driving the crusade against Huawei and Chinese technology (including use of the entity list and other sanctions) but was also the puppeteer behind the US Xinjiang policy amongst other things. Using his connections as a former Wall Street Journal reporter, he also used scores of proxy-journalists to manipulate negative media coverage against China across a wide range of areas, and instrumentalized the lab-leak conspiracy theory and covid blame games accordingly.

Yet the point of this story is not so much about Pottinger himself, as it is regarding the British state's continued subservience to American foreign policy, and often for no good reason at all. Prior to this infamous U-turn, the United Kingdom had a more independent rendering of its national interests regarding China. Boris Johnson understood that the inclusion of Huawei was beneficial to Britain, yet this was deemed completely intolerable by the United States who exerted pressure to remind the UK "where its true interests" lay. In doing so, the U-turn became extremely expensive for the British taxpayer and telecommunications companies, who had to spend billions changing course, delaying the rollout and quality of 5G accordingly.

But two years later, it is a sad yet inevitable outcome that the UK has not learnt from its mistakes or made this merely a one-off, but has in fact doubled down on its anti-China policy and committed itself more readily to Washington's strategic vision in containing Beijing. A year after banning Huawei, the UK readily joined "AUKUS", a commitment to a greater military alliance in containing China. British politicians also bought more readily into the claims of so-called "genocide" in Xinjiang, which was also propagandized by the US as a means of blocking further western engagement with China, and now it has sadly come to the point where both Conservative leadership candidates are waging a struggle to be seen as toughest when it comes to China.

It is unthinkable that someone as fanatical as Liz Truss could have been on the ascendency just two and a half years ago, yet this is the new reality. However, the truth remains that Britain was not better off by taking this path (alongside Brexit), but is in fact worse off. The banning of Huawei to appease American demands was a true case of "cutting one's nose off to spite one's face" and the clear evidence that there was no legitimate reason to do so beyond that is a sour reminder that the so-called "special relationship" and the dream of Anglophone exceptionalism continues to distort British foreign policy in an irrational manner, often amounting to disastrous outcomes.

For close observers, this is what we always knew. American bullying, nothing more, nothing less. Yet for the average British observer, the mantra of the so-called "China threat" and rampant Sinophobia makes it difficult to come to terms with the reality that Britain is neither as independent nor as "global" as what it claims to be. The UK sought productive and beneficial ties with China, but another country duly sabotaged it and they just sat down and took it.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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