The Foreign secretary tells us China is a threat. He tells us the government is increasing its spending on Intelligence by £600 m. Like the US the UK seeks to keep China out of crucial defence and digital systems.
Meanwhile the PM will not confirm he sees China as a threat. With the Chancellor he wants friendly enough relations to promote more trade and investment.
China is running rings round US, EU and UK in producing much cheaper battery cars, based on a big home market assisted by subsidies and other encouragements. The US has placed a very high tariff on them to keep them out, followed by high tariffs from the EU. The UK has imposed no new high tariff, inviting in many more Chinese vehicles. The UK is also very reliant on imported solar panels and wind turbines for its big drive to net zero.
Has the UK become too dependent on China? Is China a threat? Should trade and investment with China be encouraged?
June 26, 2025
Good morning.
When I read the headline of this article I immediately thought to myself; “Yes !” “Yes they do !”
Then I read:
At which point I changed my mind.
Why should I trust a foreign, Foreign Secretary ? For no man can be trusted if he serves two masters.
June 26, 2025
Milibrains whole Net Stupid revolves around cheap Chinese goods even to the extent of completely destroying the UK motor industry. There is no limit to his endeavours trying to reach the holy grail.
Allowing China to build a mega embassy so near critical infrastructure in central Lo
ndon is a massive security risk. One has to ask who profits from this.
The CCP is ruthless in suppressing the population so when they take over at least we’ll be rid of these daily demonstrations by foreign actors and maybe teach the police a thing or two.
2TK and his gang love authoritarian regimes because they’re a template for their plans. This government is the real risk to the UK.
June 26, 2025
Do out solar panels and cars have remotely controlled cut out hidden in them. Interesting to see the very high charges to recycle old EV car batteries.
First action needed is to fire the deluded fool Ed Miliband, close down the Climate Change Committee etc. and kill the insane war on CO2 – the net beneficial gas of life. Solar and Wind need to compete on a fair basis and be paying for their own back up. Drill baby frill, frack baby frack and lots of R&D into better nuclear, better batteries… Rolling out duff and premature tech. with subsidies and rigged market is moronic economic lunacy. It gives us a place littered with duff, premature tech. that will have to be expensively replaced and recycled if possible!
June 26, 2025
Starmer warns us of war within our borders, while setting up those who will attack us.
I wish I could laugh.
June 27, 2025
And deliberately creating the conditions, with a two-tier society/justice system etc, which is likely to provoke it.
Why? Is it deliberate? Create the chaos and then insist that Blair’s beloved Digital ID is essential to contain it and force it through?
June 26, 2025
UK isn’t only country focused on Net Zero – the rest of the Western World is too (and China)! UK no more / no less overall (in the Western World)
Just something we have to put up with. To try and over-turn it is abstract politics – not practical thinking.
Practical thinking is to figure out how to help our entrepreneurs make as much money out of Net Zero tech as possible and export to result of world.
(And technology and services in general related to this tech – worth a fortune!).
The future is smooth electric technology, not machines pumping out thick smoke! And tonne of money to be made here.
June 26, 2025
China is a threat says our inept Foreign Secretary, yet our PM is about to give the go-ahead for China to build a massive Embassy in the centre of London amid much of Britains most sensitive technical infrastructure. Says everything about this anti British, calamitous Prime Minister currently in office.
June 26, 2025
They’ve also allowed hundreds of thousands of Chinese “students” to infiltrate and heavily influence our University sector.
June 26, 2025
Started 2 decades ago
June 26, 2025
+1
June 26, 2025
‘ Has the UK become too dependent on China? Is China a threat? Should trade and investment with China be encouraged?’
Yes the UK is already too dependent on China. They have invested heavily in the UK. We have always been happy to flog land and assets to foreigners for short term gain. China could be a threat so we do not want them having the ability to easily spy on us, or undermine critical infrastructure in the event of war.
Trade should be encouraged where there is a real benefit to us. Foreigners should not be allowed to buy land and property but it is already too late to do anything about that. Chinese citizens have been buying new property,off plan, as an investment for a very long time now.
June 26, 2025
Yes, China is a threat and we should keep them out of crucial defence and digital systems. But as far as renewable energy is concerned, no
As far as I am aware, we do not import wind turbines from China. Our wind farm blades are manufactured on Humberside, with the Siemens electric turbines also now assembled there. The wind turbine towers are built in Lincs. The floating wind farm proposed for Scotland will probably be built in the old oil rig yards in Nigg on the Cromarty Firth, saving skills and jobs
Chinese solar panels are the cheapest in the world. We only have to import them once and they last for 25+ years. Maybe a few cheap Chinese EV’s will help the energy transition here. They do look stylish
Reply The UK imports lots of wind turbines from China
June 26, 2025
@Reply – the UK imports the majority of manufactured goods and likely food and liquid fuels.
You can import a machine from China (or Japan or Germany etc) and use it to produce products locally to displace imported goods, to re-shore activity and skills – I have done this in a small way. Where is the drive for that kind of investment? Why no pressure to invest in automation and robotics, electronics and computing.
Why are we not re-learning skills in steam boilers, nuclear reactors, metails and materials recovery and all the other engineering and technologies.
Where is the drive and support for STEM education and R&D? Why have universities closed science departments and replaced them with media studies .. why no effective push back?
But all we hear is moaning about steel and cars.
June 26, 2025
Dixie
Not many engineers left with the skill set that you mention, most of them now retired or been made redundant, thus they cannot teach younger ones, even if those younger ones were interested, which many are not.
June 26, 2025
The Chinese should not get a “free pass” to participate in the Net Zero scam. Not least because they are doing it by using and expanding use of the cheap fossil fuels we are being prevented from using, thus enriching their economy and wrecking ours.
June 27, 2025
Maybe we should only buy from countries with a better net zero score than ourselves?
That’s ethical!
June 26, 2025
Solar Panels may or may not last 25 years but they are certainly not 100% efficient for that period, something few take into account when calculating Return on Capital employed, when installing such schemes.
Same would apply to Battery life and efficiency in so called power storage systems.
Agree the Chinese products appear to be the most cost effective at the moment though.
June 26, 2025
Less than 100% is not unusual – elements of telecoms networks I was involved in were engineered to meet required performance at 80% capacity to allow for degredation and peak bursts. I engineered my roof solar panels at 75% – 5kW of panels to deliver 3.8 kW allowing for degradation as well as more hours of light capture during a day – the panels are Chinese while the inverter-controller is Israeli.
June 26, 2025
SG :
A majority of wind turbine parts initiate from China although assembly may be here or elsewhere in Europe. Interesting report from the Telegraph of how even the UK wind turbine blade manufacturers are now going bust because of high energy prices and competition from China:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/18/energy-costs-trigger-closure-uk-biggest-fibre-glass-factory/
June 26, 2025
Thats the cost winning the climate change race ….import baby import
June 26, 2025
SG : “Chinese solar panels are the cheapest in the world. We only have to import them once and they last for 25+ years”.
Are these the solar panels made using coal power and slave labour, leaving large toxic tailing lakes and fitted with Chinese controlled kill switches which are entirely unprotected and could all be easily damaged overnight using hammers by gangs of “strangers”? Or even destroyed in a hailstorm? And what about after 25 years? All the solar panels fitted today will need replacement in 2050 (more like 2045 or before) or do you believe that the world will end by 2050 if CO2 continues to rise so no replacements will be needed from China, a state described by our security services as “hostile”?
June 26, 2025
A hammer would work on a panel manufactured anywhere (eg US or Germany) while the panels don’t suddenly stop working at 25 yrs old.
Is that the same “coal power and slave labour” that manufactured your phone, laptop, PC or TV but doesn’t appear to bother you..
June 27, 2025
dixie :
You are absolutely correct to say that a solar panel made anywhere in the world can be equally easily destroyed by a hammer and hence a whole solar estate by a gang of strangers with hammers overnight. In fact I would say that since solar is such an insecure form of energy that the Chinese selling solar panels very cheaply to us is a modern form of the Trojan Horse, especially when fitted with kill switches. BTW, solar panels do degrade at the rate of up to 1% per year and I didn’t say I wasn’t bothered by the importation of other Chinese products using slave labour. It’s SG who is worried by coal power. I’m not because CAGW is a hoax.
June 26, 2025
SG : “The floating wind farm proposed for Scotland will probably be built in the old oil rig yards in Nigg on the Cromarty Firth, saving skills and jobs”
At the last renewables auction round (AR6) floating offshore wind was nearly two and a half times more expensive than fixed offshore wind, already the most expensive form of electrical energy before even considering transmission costs and intermittency etc. Even worse, there is no energy security in relying upon thousands of floating or fixed offshore wind turbines and their cables spread out over half the North Sea from cheap air and undersea drones.
June 26, 2025
No UK tariffs or import duty on Chinese EVs, Solar and Wind Turbines
June 26, 2025
SG : “Maybe a few cheap Chinese EV’s will help the energy transition here. They do look stylish.”
Apart from unnecessarily destroying our motor industry as CAGW is a communist hoax, bevs, as intended, will reduce the freedom to travel because of their expense and impracticality. Not least because their use will be banned from car ferries, multi-story and underground car parks, large bridges and tunnels etc. because their fires are fierce, emit toxic fumes and are unextinguishable. A danger to human life even if they are not the primary cause of the fire. One major incident involving the loss of life will ensure they are banned. The car carrier transporter carrying bevs that caught fire in the Pacific has just sunk 400 miles off the Alaska coast after burning for weeks.
June 26, 2025
“Our” motor industry was destroyed before EVs had any impact.
June 26, 2025
Good Morning,
The evidence is manifold, from Hong Kong, the south China Sea to spies wandering around parliament at the invitation of useful idiots.
If we come to rely on the PRC for anything we will be manipulated for information and actions that will lead to harm to the only challenge to PRC domination of the Far East, the USA.
June 26, 2025
China’s economic might means great effort would be needed to avoid dependency and it is just one of a good number and may be less of a threat than some (the E.U.). Accordingly, let us encourage commerce with China.
I see it reported that BYD wants to become the biggest car brand in the world and has its eyes set on becoming the UK’s number one within just three years and also that its competitor Chery is considering locating a car plant here. Accordingly, if there is to be opposition to China, it will need to be quick.
June 26, 2025
‘Is China a threat to the UK?’
An interesting question. There are many threats to UK, many arising from so called allies, many arising internally. An example of the former is that France has not stopped the flow of illegal immigrants from France into UK. That is a threat and in my view France has no intention whatsoever of stopping it. It has no interest in doing so. if it did, the illegals would become France’s problem and it would probably lose the payments from UK. the damage this flow does to UK is way out of proportion to the actual numbers.
An example of the former is Starmer’s gang itself. It hates Britain and is giving a masterclass in how to destroy a nation state from within. Some of its tactics are taken from the revolutionary Soviet Union of the 1920s and 1930s, for example its war against the kulaks and private education, and, of course, its suppression of free speech.
Any competitor in any field is a threat. Basic business planning: environment, threats and opportunities. China exploits the weaknesses, many self created, in the West. Why shouldn’t it? The same can be said of Putin’s Russia.
A better question is whether the tactics and actions of China and Russia towards Britain are intended solely or primarily to harm Britain and break recognised and agreed rules on the conduct of international relations. Taking advantage of a counrtry’s self inflicted harms and vulnerabilities is not necessarily wrong. It may be just competition. Countries don’t have to be nice.
Militarily I don’t believe Russia is a serious threat to the UK, although NATO’s eastwards expansion while dealing dishonestly with Russia as the USSR and WP broke up, has made Russians generally, not only Putin and his allies, rightly suspicious of the West and, less justly perhaps, hostile to it. But that does not make Russia a military threat.
I don’t think China gives UK much thought at all in terms of military threats.
That leaves the EU. It is an enormous threat to the UK. It continually takes action for the sole or primary purpose of doing damage to the UK. It sees a successful UK outside the EU would be an existential threat to ever closer union towards the Federal State of Europe. UK must not be allowed to succeed.
So out of the four I rank them in terms of magnitude of mal-effect on UK and likelihood / imminence as follows:
1. Starmer’s Gang and its unholy alliance with political Islamism
2. The EU
3. China
4. Russia
Reply The current governments attacks on private education and farmers do not of course adopt the extreme violence of the Soviet communists.
June 26, 2025
@Reply your article referred to economic damage rather than physical violence. Economic damage by our own governments affects us every day and is unrelenting for those not blessed to be employed in politics, finance or law.
The one benefit of the CM/EEC/EU for our economy would have been a large single market, one to rival the US, yet our elites couldn’t even manage that nor extract us when it was clear it would never work to our benefit. Instead the focus was on feeding the political, legal and finance monsters.
June 26, 2025
R to R
Nor do they need to. Just screw farmers and small businesses financially and you achieve the same destructive result. The icing on the cake for these Luddites is to have no workable plan for afterwards, beyond dependency and 1984.
June 26, 2025
PG, +++++
June 26, 2025
Reply to reply. Yet!
June 26, 2025
The French would benefit from their country not being degraded by being a transit country. But it seems their desire to punish us is more important. When the Russians did the same thing to Poland we went to help them protect their borders. Not only does no-one come to help us, but we won’t even do it ourselves.
June 26, 2025
Reply to reply
We have become a passive population. It is not necessary to use force against our farmers or schools. Even so, it is shocking how a very different sort of police force is arresting lone old men and women for saying things or in some cases not saying anything. While at the same time not arresting people who are intimidating and violent, and a real threat to us. The abuse of the Terror legislation to interrogate Englishmen and Scotsmen purely for the purposes of intimidation is extremely alarming. As is the imprisonment of so many political prisoners. This is how the population is cowed, not by overt violence.
June 26, 2025
Nevertheless Starmer created UK’s first gulag for political prisoners by releasing thousands of violent criminals from prison. His targets are the same as those of The Russian revolution.
June 28, 2025
China has several strategic interests in the UK. Subverting its role in the UN and international political stances to be pro-China is number one. The Chinese are patient, and there are many steps along the way. We no longer protest about Chinese breaches of the agreement over Hong Kong for instance.
The next major objective is subverting the role of the City in international trade and finance. The site of the proposed new embassy comes with the potential for gargantuan spying on key communications, and the ability to do serious damage to them. He who pays the piper calls the tune: if global finance comes to depend on Shanghai we will be Shanghai’d.
These objectives are both furthered by ever increasing financial debt from trade deficits and purchase of UK debt and corporate assets. They may aim to shut competition (see Scunthorpe or the motor industry) or simply gain leverage through threats of bankruptcy for key operations.
June 26, 2025
I am a believer in free trade but (unlike most other free trade advocates) I think free trade works best within a domain. In our case, as we are self-sufficient in so many commodities, our free-trade domain should be our country. It could even be continential Europe (but not while the overbearing eu exists).
When it comes to trading with overseas countries, I am a believer in targetted tarriffs. This is especially the case with countries we do not trust, like China.
June 26, 2025
Those with memories of the Chagos Islands deal may take the view that the Foreign Secretary is more of a threat to us than is China and they may well be correct.
June 26, 2025
Indeed the main threats to the UK currently are Lammy, Starmer, Cooper-Balls, Bridget Phillipson with her pure evil attack on private schools (which will cost more than it raises and do vast harm) and above even these dire fools the Ed tomb-stone Miliband with his insane and suicidal Net Zero.
June 26, 2025
That and the fact that working so often does not make you better off it just means even more people can live off your labours.
RAC reveals the single yellow box junction catching 12 drivers every day – and raising £80K in fines.
This is an absurdly inefficient way to raise taxes – doubtless the state sector thinks this demonstraits state sector “productivity”! Doubless the entrapped motorists just regard it as another tax on top of NI, income tax, council tax, vat, stamp duty, IPT tax, fuel duty, road tax… and yet another reason why so often work no longer pays! So many on benefits are just being rational given the absurd system that pertains!
June 28, 2025
Well designed yellow boxes (not all of them are) do help improve traffic flows provided drivers adhere to the rules. However, fining them afterwards for infraction fails to help. Since they are being monitored by cameras that detect offences it would be better if the cameras were replaced by systems that warned drivers to observe the rules. A message or light over the lane when a box should not be entered would discourage casual offenders.
There are doubtless many other measures that could help with traffic flow, such as intelligent phasing of traffic lights. But councils and government don’t want that.
June 26, 2025
Every country is a threat to UK interests to some degree or other, we all compete for resources and income. Unfortunately for us our own governments are also a threat to UK citizens prosperity and way of life.
As for imported EVs, solar panels and electronics people had a choice, always have a choice, and despite repeated warnings that indiscriminate consumption would come back to bite continued to buy imported tat making the exporting countries pre-eminent and subsequently upping the quality of their goods and displacing local products
Instead of investing in production and purchasing within the local economy ramping up competitive EVs, solar panels etc all people do is whine and wonder why their employment is disappearing to elsewhere.
This has been going on since the 70’s. Why no similar complaints about the past offshoring of car production to Germany or Baked Neans and Chocolate to the Netherlands..
June 26, 2025
Just saw Peter Gardner’s comment – he puts it very well.
June 26, 2025
It’s a good question. Sometimes we are encouraged and conditioned to believe a country or a specific regime is a threat (particularly a military one) when it’s not true. We should ask ourselves what China wants, and then whether that threatens us.
China (the CCP) wants to improve the economic lot of its people in order to hold onto power, and the people are a proud, somewhat arrogant race. They are also ruthless, tenacious negotiators and capable of using force to achieve their aims. They remind me of us Brits at the time we were expanding across the globe, from the late 16th to the 19th centuries.
The Chinese are creating an economic empire. It’s a rapacious one, so they are a threat. I think are also on track to becoming world hegemon in the next 50-100 years. We can resist the former by not being so reliant upon them, but to do that we have to do more than reduce energy costs and bring home manufacturing.
We need to recover pride in our own nation and have leaders that want to look after our interests. Without that, we’re lost. That’s something we can learn from the Chinese.
June 26, 2025
“Has the UK become too dependent on China? Is China a threat? Should trade and investment with China be encouraged?”
Yes
Yes
No
Unfortunately, the Not-a-Conservative-Party, starting with Cameron/Osborne, decided the answer to those questions should be
No
No
Yes
And the Labour Government has carried on along those lines, except it believes in strengthening China’s involvement in the UK by permitting a mega Embassy just a short distance from The City and strengthening it’s influence in the Indian Ocean by handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius who are already cosying-up to them.
So, if China IS a threat (as I believe it is) then so are this Government and the Foreign Office Apparatchiks who are and have been pushing the pro-China Agenda for best part of two decades now.
We need a clear-out of both.
June 26, 2025
The economic liberal in me says we should be encouraging trade with China to lower costs to consumers and facilitate growth.
However the patriot in me sees China as an autocratic threat who is in the game for themselves. The Chinese is not a trustworthy partner on a personal or country basis.
June 26, 2025
Yes, China is a threat because it provides subsidies to industries to the point they can undercut every other country and industry. It does this through a mixture of scale of operation combined with advanced technology. Frequently this leads to over production and dumping in foreign markets, for example steel. In some instances it is accompanied by poor quality control and/or use of sub standard materials. This is evident from some low cost products I have purchased which lasted barely a month in use. It is also evident in more expensive battery powered products, such as cars or scooters which have spontaneously burst into flame. The provision of free and unfettered access to goods made in China is a threat to domestic industries. The UK government does not appear to be bothered by this. It should be. Otherwise it creates a fatal dependency.
June 26, 2025
When wars develop, the victors tend to be the ones who are capable of manufacturing most to endure and win. Now the West barely manufactures much in relation to a nation of 1.4 billion people and its enormous workforce.
June 26, 2025
The Foreign secretary tells us China is a threat to the U.K.
NO the only threat to the U.K. is this Labour government
June 26, 2025
I believe that China’s policy towards any outside country is to make them technically and commercially dependant. Once achieved there is no need for their boots to be on the ground. Their route to this is plagerism and intellectual property theft.
It is not a new concept. The greatness of US commercial and technical achievement is based on German and British technical achievement deriving from and post WW2. I am flipantly inclined to suggest that the best things that have come from the USA are Mash, Friends, Jazz, and the american Song Book. Just look at what they have achieved by use of the WWW, while we having invented it have been politically incapable of exploiting it, nor in dealing with its negative consequences. Should we succed with Fusion Energy, what will be the consequences in the UK political climate where we currently suffer the very worst imaginable. The Cape Verde Islands are more likely to have the wit to exploit it.
June 26, 2025
It wasn’t so very long ago that Cameron and Osborne were gushing about their lovely new ‘strategic partner’. The next Conservative PM – if there’s ever another one – needs to order China to reduce the size of their diplomatic mission here to the same size as ours in Beijing.
June 26, 2025
Yes to all
June 26, 2025
China is a threat in the same way the USA and the EU are threats. Each has its own interests at heart and is not looking for symbiosis, just dominance.
At least USA and EU has transparency and democracy to rein them in but the three of them are the same side of the coin in terms of threat to the UK.
June 26, 2025
One other thing: the King needs to call in the heads of the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service and ask for a full briefing on Chinese Intelligence and Influence operations in this country. And that briefing should be in the absence of ministers.
June 26, 2025
The growing problem of China goes back to welcoming thousands of ‘students’ with dependents here, coupled with donations influencing policy in universities. The tentacles of China reach out everywhere, the ageing directors of China’s future have played the long game, securing consumer dominance by undercutting business by dumping products here. They have bought up important areas of marketplaces with influence in the future.
We all hear of intensified efforts to secure rare earth minerals expected to be required in future products.
No wonder our attitude has become hostile to China’s importance.
June 26, 2025
A much bigger threat to the UK is its government, never mind China.
I went into a major electrical store a little while back and couldn’t find a kettle not made in China. Of course it’s impossible to find a UK manufactured one, as our industry has folded under the burden of tax and high living costs.
Some might point to the cost of energy being so much higher in the UK, but according to our accounts taxes are several times more than what we pay for electricity. The government needs this money so it can indulge the feckless and foolish with benefits, not to mention all the other waste. What salary our workforce takes home in pay after the government has taken its cut largely goes on rent/mortgage and council tax. So our workers have to compete with foreign competition for a roof over their head, whilst also subsidising those who need a care home place because they haven’t put by for their old age.
Don’t blame China for UK’s self inflicted woes.
June 26, 2025
Sir John
China is a threat at the moment in so far as it has through excessive subsidies for its Industry, weaponised trade to the extent it has destroyed jobs therefore the economies elsewhere.
Some reports indicate that just BYD(EV cars) has received over $3.7 billion in Government funding as well as being exempt from taxes in China. On top of that our Government takes money from the UK Taxpayer to just give it to BYD, all under the cover of NetZero. Of course BYD is not alone in China as being part of the country’s attack on everyone else.
The factor in China has got it self in the position of owning the rights to essential resources and materials around the Globe holding some 90% of the Worlds production of rare earth metals.
When China invades Taiwan, it will the own the worlds silicone chip and electronics production.
They already are embedded in the controlling sense of the UK’s Wind power facilities and its solar power production, they are the Government preferred supplier. The much heralded give away of some £500 million of Taxpayer money to start battery assembly in the UK was the Government giving UK taxpayer money to an Indian Company for it to then to pass it to the Chinese( the Indian Company knows nothing about battery production itself)
Is the threat from China or the UK Government and its Legislators?
June 26, 2025
We have become a ‘buyer’ from China, with the inability to produce for ourselves the things we need at a reasonable price. Of course China is taking advantage of our lazy ways and have used their cheapness against us to ruin our industries.
China has the potential to be a war threat, if only because of the number of troops they can muster, but have you seen their naval hardware – that is impressive and not designed for defence.
We should be wary of China but I wouldn’t trust the word of a warmongering internationalist politician goading us into hating the Chinese and the Russians, to build up tensions.
It makes sense to build up our armed forces since they were almost destroyed by negligence, but let’s not over do it.
Starmer is very interested in making the UK an active military force because of his own personal nightmares that he shares so easily, but at what cost. Did he celebrate the announcement of 1.5 Million dead in Ukraine.
Would he expect the same level of sacrifices from us in defending Ukraine – The answer can only be YES because this is a man of the new world order who believes in order from extreme chaos and a depopulation agenda.
Before our PM starts any conflicts with China he should be reminded of the need for exhaustive diplomacy before a single shot is fired in anger.
June 26, 2025
China, Russia, NK and Iran aka CRIN should make us cringe at the prospect of thinking they are not a threat. Ukrainians and Israelis are the proverbial canaries who keep trying to keep Western democracy in the real world.
Labour only think China is their friend and indulge them to our detriment.
June 26, 2025
While UK police do it on a regular basis, German police do it in excess once a year to intimidate and destroy opposition to the ruling elite.
How long will it be before we are all so intimidated that we dare not say a word out of place – It can’t be far off now!
June 26, 2025
Companies have sometimes in the past become too reliant on one large customer and then find themselves in all sorts of trouble if the relationship turns sour. It’s no different if we rely on one large supplier.
June 26, 2025
Interesting that for the first time Xi is not attending the BRICS annual summit.
Most of BRICS are the loser, dependant countries that have nearly sunk the U.K.
China has no intention of assuming that burden. Russia will ditch them too.
China is interested in enslaving able nations. Not by military means but by stealth.
Lammy and Starmer are ideally suited to counter stealth, I’m sure everyone will agree.
So as Starmer says, the U.K. is facing war on our own streets for the first time in 1,000 years.
DEPORT DEPORT DEPORT
June 26, 2025
In a different department China is apparently not seen as a threat , and a new super embassy is on the cards against all advice. Why does this little island require a super embassy ?
June 26, 2025
On paper, at least, it’s hard to say we are “too reliant” on China. In 2024 (all ONS data), China accounted for 7.6% of UK imports, a distant third after the EU (50%) and the US (13%). We do have a significant trade deficit, with China comprising only 3.4% of our exports, but it’s still our sixth-largest export market. Thus, if we saw China as “friendly” it wouldn’t look much different from Poland, where in 2024 we imported £20 billion of goods but exported only about £7.3bn.
Three things suggest China is less of a friend than a threat. First is China’s human rights record. Surveillance of the Chinese population has reached Orwellian levels (see Zhang Jialing’s Total Trust documentary on the BBC). I wouldn’t buy a Chinese phone or use Chinese social media for this reason. Meanwhile, opacity in China’s supply chains has created concerns about ethical sourcing of labour, particularly the minority Uyghur population (cf. the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans imports linked to forced labour in Xinjiang). Second is the concern about Chinese manufacturers dumping in the West. For example, BYD – which has overtaken Tesla in European car sales – has $35bn of accounts payable: this has led analysts to question whether it can survive an EV downturn (see BusinessWorld, 9 June). Might the Chinese state then bail out BYD to help force its rivals out of business? Third, China dominates solar cell production, with the concomitant issues flowing from net-zero policies in the West, especially the UK (currently).
So should we encourage trade and investment with China? Not if by doing so means we import malevolent labour practices, open ourselves to overweening surveillance, and accept state-sponsored corruption of the free market.
June 28, 2025
Trade statistics can be misleading. Much of our import from China comes from distribution centres in Europe, or is embedded in products that are nominally made elsewhere. The Chinese do not mind if a wind turbine made in Tianjin (where nearly all the largest turbines are made) is branded Siemens Gamesa or Vestas. The former is trying to negotiate for rare earths magnets, essential to turbine generators, to be made in Europe. Now they all come from China. If they “succeed” China will be sure to retain close control over the supply chain and operation.
June 26, 2025
It is a matter of fact that China exists and is going to grow at substantially higher rates than the UK. The culture of the Chinese is growth particularly in the peoples’ standard of living. The Chinese people will feel justified in doing whatever they can to bring the country’s standard of living well beyond that of the UK and even that of the US. The evolution is inevitable as is clear to anyone who has the smallest knowledge of history. Like aging, we need to live with it and accept the inevitable graciously – but not with conflict. We must have peaceful accommodation.
June 26, 2025
The Russians built the Moscow Metro to run under the British Embassy and the palatial pre Revolution flats that housed the defence attachés and the Minister. They tried to tap the “fishtank” secure Faraday cage basement room within a room used for the most sensitive discussions from the Metro tunnel. The trains rattled ornaments and dinner plates at the flats, being only just below. Again it was used as access to the basement.
June 26, 2025
China is a threat to the UK because of the soft, weak approach of this and past governments. This Labour government is also our enemy in many ways, taxes, employment law, and Net Zero, for example.
Brainless Milliband would rather buy from China than encourage and support UK suppliers, because that might slow down his mad rush to Net Zero. Net Zero is nonsense, as anyone who takes the time to study it knows.
Chinese EVs should be subject to high tariffs, or they will destroy the UK car industry, but it seems we have a government that does not care about that!
Likewise, the EU is not our friend, as it does everything it can to create problems for the UK. Starmer’s sellout of our fishing industry is an example. It is said to be a small part of our economy, so it does not matter. But supported and with our fishing grounds properly protected, it might grow to become much more valuable. But that requires a PM and Government with some vision for the future, which Labour don’t have!
June 26, 2025
If China is a threat, why on earth are they continuing to drive Russia into her arms? Why allow this dangerous axis of dictators to form against us, China, Russia, Iran, and N Korea? Why have a covert world war 3 with them on the borders of the number one nuclear power, which Starmer seems horribly keen on? Why continue to persecute our soldiers? Why have DEI on the front line? Why give away the Chagos Islands, in effect to China, and pay through the nose to lease a bit of them back, under the surveillance of China? As for Net Zero…
June 26, 2025
Currently the biggest threat to the UK from China is the 150K “students” we have in our univeristies. As well as stealing research/IP data and curbing free speech they are using our universities to promote the CAGW/Net Zero hoax to sabotage the West’s energy and hence economies and democracy. CO2 does not cause global warming. Happer & Wijngaarden have shown using the IPCC’s own radiative warming theory that there is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to give almost all the warming feasible, a phenomenon known as saturation. And Shula & Ott provide a compelling case that there is no warming at at all because of thermalisation, a phenomenon studied and understood since the development of CO2 lasers.
June 26, 2025
118 criminals were smuggled, into the UK yesterday 25th ; from the safe country of France…
June 26, 2025
When is the PM going to start “smashing the gangs”? The fake charities, the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, the RNLI, the Border Force, the lawyers? All of whom are assisting the illegal migrants to come illegally and stay in the UK. What about smashing the gangs organising the black market delivery jobs?
June 27, 2025
GC: After 3 days of wind & zero.
The last 15 days: 11 JUN to 25 JUN inclusive – a total of 3706 arrivals on 59 boats. ( Official figures )
June 27, 2025
Average 93 rooms per UK hotels = 380 hotels needed just this past month !!!
June 26, 2025
Yes to all your questions. Everyone wants cheap products and China, via Amazon supplies them. This is fortunate because long ago we destroyed our manufacturing base. And where would Milibrain seek his solar panels and windmills.
June 27, 2025
Our manufacturing base was killed by a combination of : regular increasing of employment costs and imposed conditions, dumping of competitive products in our marketplace, government closing of coal mining, fracking, oil access which meant steel and coal closures and spiralling costs.
June 26, 2025
MOD staff have been told not to have secret conversations in cars, or over the phone from cars, imported from China. Tells us all we need to know.
June 26, 2025
destruction of the British bus and coach industry by importing cheap equivalents from China is a mistake. the Chinese car makers are also openly threatening British journalists with court for being critical of their cars. we stopped Japanese car imports with real and threatened import quotas, why have we not done the same to China? We owe an apology to the Japanese.
June 28, 2025
Probably the best antidote to Chinese dominance is establishing good trade and diplomatic relations with a wide range of countries that can act as competition for China and mutual reinforcement. However, I’m reminded of a cartoon from the Arab-Israeli war era, depicting Golda Meir and Gen Moshe Dayan sitting alongside a globe with every continent labelled “Israel” saying to him “We’re safe now!”
When so many countries become subservient to China through Belt and Road etc. it becomes hard to find those allies because we have retreated so much and disdain them by telling them they should run their economies as net zero (using Chinese solar panels! which we might help them buy).