The two finalists vying to become Britain’s next prime minister, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, clashed in a televised debate last month over who would be tougher on China. It is a stark departure from outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “Sinophilic” approach to business and part of a hardening of anti-China rhetoric in many Western countries and other democracies such as Japan that is showing up in election campaigns. Nations have for years struggled to balance promoting trade and investment with the world’s second-largest economy with concerns about China’s projection of military power, espionage and its human rights record. The pendulum is swinging towards the latter, as evidenced by opposition from the US, Europe, Japan and Australia to threatening Chinese military exercises that followed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week and growing warnings from the Western intelligence agencies for Beijing’s espionage and interference. . A delegation of US lawmakers arrived in Taiwan on Sunday to discuss de-escalation of the Taiwan Strait and investment in semiconductors, among other issues. That shift has made China a target for politicians seeking votes, as polls show public sentiment in many democracies is turning against China. Some candidates blame China for economic woes at home, in addition to posing a security threat to its neighbors and the wider world. China loomed large in Australia’s May election, in which the conservatives, who ultimately lost, tried to paint the opposition as unwilling to stand up to Beijing. America’s rising adversary on the world stage is also expected to show up in US congressional races this fall, particularly in industrialized Midwestern states, long after former President Donald Trump embraced a tough stance against China. Many in Europe are also balancing their approach to China, although this did not feature prominently in elections in France this year and Germany in 2021. Andreas Fulda, a University of Nottingham political scientist specializing in China, said British politicians “are clearer about China” than their European neighbours. “The UK has paid a lot of attention to what’s going on in Australia and in many ways the debate here is way ahead of mainland Europe,” he said. Truss, the British foreign secretary and front-runner in the Conservative Party leadership race, has spoken of expanding what he calls the “freedom network” so that democracies can deal with China and Russia more effectively. He says he will crack down on Chinese tech companies such as the owner of the short video platform TikTok. In her role as Britain’s top diplomat, Truss strongly criticized China’s military moves after Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, accusing Beijing of “aggressive and broad escalation” that “threatens peace and stability in the region”. Sunak, a former head of Britain’s Treasury, has vowed to shut down the partly Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes that promote Chinese culture and language at UK universities, lead an international alliance against Chinese cyber threats and help British companies and universities to deal with Chinese espionage. “I had a sense of déjà vu as soon as I moved from Australia,” said Ben Bland, director of the Asia-Pacific program at London think tank Chatham House, who previously worked at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. “There is a similar atmosphere with some politicians trying to develop the China threat as a domestic political tool.” Bland described a dramatic shift in the way politicians talk about China in both the UK and Australia, from a focus on trade and business ties five years ago to seeing China “through the lens of a threat for national security and economic competitiveness”. In Australia’s election, conservatives broke with a tradition of bipartisanship on critical national security issues to accuse the center-left Labor Party of being likely to appease Beijing. The gambit was shortened. Labour, whose victory ended nine years of Conservative rule, denied changing its policy on China and called China’s military exercises around Taiwan “disproportionate and destabilizing”. “This is not something Australia is asking for alone,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said, adding that the entire region was concerned. A Lowy Institute survey published in June found Australians are increasingly worried about their country’s biggest trading partner. Three-quarters of respondents said it was at least somewhat likely that China would become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years, up 30 percentage points from 2018. A Pew Research Center poll that same month showed negative views of China at or near historic highs in many of the 19 countries surveyed in North America, Europe and Asia. Relations between London and Beijing have soured since President Xi Jinping received a state visit in 2015, which he hoped the UK government would cement deals to give Britain a huge pool of investment and China greater access to European markets. Johnson, who took office in 2019, has always stressed he was not a “knee-jerk Sinophobe” — but under pressure from the US, his government has banned Chinese companies from the UK’s 5G communications network. Britain has also welcomed thousands of people from Hong Kong as Beijing clamps down on freedoms in the former British colony. MI6 chief Richard Moore said last month that China had overtaken terrorism as its top priority, as British spies try to understand the threats Beijing’s growing self-confidence can pose. “It feels like a really big moment, after 9/11,” Moore said. The US is also transferring intelligence sources to China. But China experts say much of the rhetoric from Western politicians is simply political grandstanding. Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said no candidate seeking to be Britain’s next prime minister has articulated a coherent China policy. The winner will be announced on September 5 following a Conservative Party vote. “The indications are that (Sunak’s) words about China’s policy are not based on any kind of strategy,” Chang said. “Not even Truss has articulated a proper China strategy, despite being the current foreign secretary.” China repelled the growing hostility. “I would like to make it clear to some British politicians that making irresponsible comments about China, including mockery of the so-called ‘Chinese threat’, cannot solve its own problems,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said after Sunak-Truss debate. In the United States, both major political parties have railed against China on the campaign trail, particularly in the Midwest, where Chinese imports are blamed for the loss of manufacturing jobs. Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz ran thousands of TV ads this spring that mentioned China. In Ohio, Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan said in an ad: “It’s us versus China.” Polls suggest that neither China, nor foreign policy in general, is an issue that concerns most US voters. But political strategists believe China is likely to remain a strong political issue in November’s US congressional elections, as candidates seek to link China to America’s economic challenges. In Asia, it was more nuanced. Japanese voters have become more supportive of a stronger military following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and heightened tensions over Taiwan. In South Korea’s presidential vote in March, the candidates differed on how to handle the intensifying rivalry between two important partners, China and the US. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who won narrowly, promised to build a stronger alliance with the US, while his liberal opponent advocated a balancing act. But since taking office in May, Yoon has avoided upsetting China, a major export market. He did not meet Pelosi when he came to South Korea from Taiwan, although he did speak with her by phone, and his administration has refrained from criticizing Chinese military moves around the self-ruled island.
Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, Steve Peoples in New York, Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
