While the EU is fixated on avoiding economic retaliation during the Hong Kong crisis, the UK is joining the US in decoupling from China.
You are browsing in private mode. To enjoy all the benefits of our website LOG IN or Create an Account The Hong Kong crisis has become a watershed in Britain’s post-Brexit geopolitical orientation. While Boris Johnson has kept close to the EU on Iran through the pandemic, with Hong Kong he has led Britain into a position as potentially confrontational as Washington’s. It is not only a matter of offering Hong Kong citizens with British overseas passports a pathway to citizenship, or deciding to exclude Huawei from Britain’s 5G networks. Rather, it demonstrates that commercial interests will be subordinated to ethical concerns about China’s actions. This was reflected in the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s insistence that Hong Kong citizens’ rights must come before bankers’ bonuses. While the EU is still fixated on avoiding economic retaliation, Britain is joining the US in decoupling from China. With the Chinese leadership threatening “a forceful counter attack”, this move will have a self-perpetuating logic. In part, this divergence comes from Britain’s singular position on Hong Kong. As Britain’s EU membership began to crack, the Cameron-led coalition government remained aligned with the EU’s embrace of Chinese investment. But there was always a crucial difference between the Sino-German and the Sino-British economic relationship. Well before China’s Eurasian turn, big German corporations, not least the car manufacturers, were exporting to China and locating production and supply chains there. Over the past decade, China has become Germany’s single largest trading partner. By contrast, for David Cameron and George Osborne, Britain’s comparative advantage lay in the City of London and the Hong Kong London nexus, allowing London to serve as the primary centre outside Hong Kong for renminbi trading.
