By Robert Jenrick.
This country’s greatest leaders have been remembered for how they’ve stood up to our enemies – Pitt against Napoleon, Churchill against Nazi Germany, Thatcher against the Soviet Union.
If the past week tells us anything, it’s that history will not remember Keir Starmer kindly.
China’s Xi Jinping is like a boa constrictor, trying to slowly choke Britain and its Western allies. Starmer’s strategy is to go limp in the hopes of saving himself.
From the beginning, this Government’s approach to China has been weak and naive. He declined to block China’s new super-embassy in London, while Rachel Reeves jetted off to Beijing with a begging bowl last year.
This week’s debacle over the collapse of the China spy case is the worst example yet. Starmer’s Government stands accused of sabotaging the prosecution of men charged with spying in Parliament. He’s alleged to have withheld the publication of a dossier which is said to expose the full extent of hostile Chinese activity against this country.
We’ve seen the Crown Prosecution Service, the Home Office, the Attorney-General and Number 10 all briefing against one another in an effort to shift the blame and avoid the obvious conclusion: this Government engineered the case to collapse as a favour to Beijing.
The spy case only shows our enemies, including China, how weak Britain has become – and it could not come at a worse time. Since the election of President Trump, the Americans have made two things clear. First, that the Trump administration views China as an existential threat. Second, that the threat is far more advanced than initially feared.
The Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy, produced in August, suggests we can expect to see less US engagement in Europe and the Middle East, as they focus on the Indo-Pacific. That is already obvious and has been a stated objective of multiple presidents, Republican and Democrat.
However, the Trump administration is beginning to acknowledge a more uncomfortable truth. China is now so advanced that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to challenge Beijing in the medium term. America is a declining power and one that has heavily overextended itself. Reality is biting, and some in Washington are beginning to say so out loud.
From Gaza to Ukraine, Trump is in the business of settling disputes, not creating new ones.
That the era of American interventionism, born in the wake of the Second World War, may be drawing to a close shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Monroe Doctrine has seen America focus on protecting its interests in the Western hemisphere for most of its history.
Yet for far too long, the European establishment has behaved as if American support could always be relied upon. That has proven to be a dangerous delusion. America devoted resources to Europe it could ill afford. In turn, Europe chronically underfunded its defence and allowed welfare states to build up which it cannot sustain.
As America withdraws, and China becomes ever more assertive, Britain must be willing to strike a new path. That doesn’t mean tub thumping in the Indo-Pacific.
But it does mean that we must rebuild our independent military capacity, supported by a reinvigorated industrial base.
It means a zero-tolerance approach to spying and sabotage efforts, protecting our intellectual property from theft, and preventing Chinese companies from dominating strategically-significant sectors of our economy.
Weakness in the face of aggression, followed by embarrassing public rows, is the worst way to maintain relations with China. We must set and defend clear boundaries.
We’ve seen that this Government’s approach to Beijing couldn’t be more different. Starmer seems oblivious to the changing times we live in, advised as he is, by the likes of Powell and Mandelson, fossils of a different age.
The world is changing. Britain has the misfortune of a Prime Minister who seems blind to this reality. It’s time for Starmer to develop a backbone and stand up to Beijing.
Robert Jenrick is the Member of Parliament for Newark and Shadow Lord Chancellor & Secretary of State for Justice.
Follow Robert Jenrick on Twitter / X at x.com/RobertJenrick
