Our embrace of China was naive and cynical – now is the time to hold Beijing to account

Back in the days of the David Cameron government, senior Cabinet ministers were presented with the concerns of the intelligence agencies about China. Beijing would spy on Britain, they warned, and steal our military and commercial secrets. And the Chinese would use their economic power to exert geopolitical pressure on us.

The ministers listened politely, but failed to heed the warning. As one senior attendee summed up, “China is going to do all this anyway. We might as well take their money.” And so a cynical bargain was struck. Britain would win foreign investment in its economy, but place itself at the mercy of a brutal and autocratic government. The “golden era” of relations between the two countries – as Beijing insisted on calling it – was under way.

Even its advocates called the policy “Operation Kowtow”. But the Treasury got what it wanted, and the investment kept coming. Trade between Britain and China more than doubled in a decade, while last year alone China invested more than $20 billion (£16 billion) in Britain. From the new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point to the rollout of 5G, Chinese investors and companies have been at the heart of our most important recent infrastructure programmes.

And yet the decision to go “all in” with China was not only a matter of finance. Understanding that this would be “the Asian century”, Mr Cameron’s chancellor, George Osborne, decided that Britain should make itself China’s best friend in the West. Just as Harold Macmillan had perceived that, as British power declined, we should play Athens to America’s Rome, Mr Osborne thought he could pull off a geopolitical pivot that would strengthen Britain for decades to come.

This judgment – powered by a curious mix of arrogance, naivety and cynicism – has been proved foolish. Chinese investment has come with strings attached. It has bought British silence as China abrogates its treaty responsibilities in Hong Kong and incarcerates one million Uighurs. British ministers refuse to meet the Dalai Lama and, like other Western countries, refuse to recognise the independence of Taiwan.

China’s Hinkley deal grants its General Nuclear Power Group a contractual right to “progressive entry” into Britain’s nuclear energy facilities: after Hinkley the Chinese will gain a deepening operational role at Sizewell and Bradwell. With 5G, inviting Huawei into our telecoms infrastructure risks industrial espionage and other security threats. And the decision to go with Huawei, just like Britain’s choice to become a founder member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, has alienated our security partners.

So there are several good reasons why we cannot go “all in” with China. It is the principal strategic rival of the United States, our most important ally. It is surely now obvious that China is also a strategic rival to the West as a whole. It is an autocratic and oppressive state, with wildly different values and interests to our own. Its policy towards Asia, Africa and elsewhere is inevitably imperialistic. And its modus operandi – setting debt traps for countries to gain leverage over them and engaging in mass industrial espionage – is a danger to our interests and those of our allies.