Wednesday was a sad day for every right thinking person in Hong Kong, and it is a day that will be full of consequence, not just for the people of Hong Kong, but for the future of international relations and the world’s dealings with China.
China has been flexing its muscles for a long time, but the West has been slow to realise it. China is the new imperial power in Africa. It has in large parts taken over the continent, raping it for its natural resources and embedding itself in all sorts of different countries. It has only one aim; the furtherance of Chinese power and influence on the continent.
Just look at how it’s behaving towards India over the disputed border region. It continues to threaten Taiwan. It treats its minority Uighur muslim population in a manner reminiscent of how the Jews were treated in Nazi Germany.
And now it has imposed a new security law on Hong Kong in defiance of the terms of the 1985 Joint Declaration. Laughably, China justifies it on the basis that it was a ‘declaration’ and not a ‘Treaty’. They say it is we who have broken the agreement by offering British passports to 2.9 million Hong Kong Chinese people and offering them sanctuary in the UK. You don’t have to be a lawyer to work out that they’re talking utter bollocks. They know it too, but it will always suit their interests to create a bogeyman for all those who fall for their preposterous propaganda.
I think it is now inconceivable that the deal with Huawei can go ahead. There are now enough Tory MPs who would be able to defeat the government in any vote. I doubt whether it will come to that. The Prime Minister was always reluctant to go ahead with it anyway, so surely he will now be pushed over the edge.
There will be consequences, though, and one of them will be that UK universities will be targeted by the Chinese. Many university courses are now totally reliant on Chinese students (and their fees) for their existence. China will probably stop its students from coming to the UK, and that gap in funding for UK universities will be impossible to fill. In 2014-15 there were 89,500 Chinese students at UK universities. Since then, the number has got up by a third to 120,000.
It would not surprise me if the UK experiences a state sponsored country-wide Cyber attack in the next few weeks, along the lines of that which Australia underwent a few weeks ago. A huge proportion of the cyber attacks launched against Britain already come from China. How do I know this? Because I’ve seen the proof. I could reveal how, but I’d have to shoot you. UPDATE: Given David Cameron has mentioned this too, I went to GCHQ a couple of years ago and in their Ops room they have a screen which shows where all the cyber attacks on the UK emanate from on a daily basis. The three top countries are China, Russia and North Korea.
The government is entirely right to offer sanctuary to Hong Kongers. Initially, it looked as if they would only do this for the 330,000 current British Overseas Passport holders but they have extended it to 2.9 million people who would be entitled to apply for one. No one seriously believes that all 2.9 million would come here. There are plenty of other countries in the world that would welcome some of them too, but it’s entirely possible that maybe a quarter to a third might consider coming. However, it is also entirely possible that the Chinese could do one of two things. They could impose a deadline for people to leave, or they could stop people leaving altogether. That would provoke a full-blown international crisis, but they’re ruthless enough not to give a damn about that.
Britain has very few levers to pull in a situation like this. Using condemnatory language is one thing we can do. Offering sanctuary is another. Bringing to a halt Chinese involvement in our national infrastructure is a third. I don’t see a trade war having much effect unless some sort of trade sanctions are imposed by the international community through the WTO. We as individuals could boycott Chinese goods, I suppose, but given Chinese imports are worth nearly £45 billion a year, I suspect a boycott wouldn’t make much of a dent. Our exports to China are worth only half that, but there’s little doubt that they would be hit too.
In the end, we have to do what is right and hang the consequences. What the government has done IS right. There may some anti-immigration siren voices on the right who have an issue with us meeting our obligations, but they should be ignored. We should welcome Hong Kong Chinese people with open arms. They would bring massive positives to our country. The government now needs to try to work out how many might want to come and on what timescale. We need to think very deeply about this because if we make the same mistake as Tony Blair made in the early 2000s with immigration from eastern Europe, and fail to provide the requisite infrastructure, the consequences could be dire.
This article was first published on ConservativeHome.