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Strife Series on British Security Post-Brexit, Part I – Brexit, Empire and British Security

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By: Dr Samir Puri

The end of its Empire was Britain’s last seismic rearrangement of its alignments and alliances. Today, Britain is slowly and painfully disentangling itself from the European Union. Of course, the two processes are incomparable in all but the most analogical, journalistic terms. Or are they?

“As I look out upon the future of our country in the changing scene of human destiny, I feel the existence of three great circles among the free nations and democracies”, said Winston Churchill in 1948. “The first circle for us is naturally the British Commonwealth and Empire… Then there is also the United States… And finally, there is United Europe.”

Britain’s defence and security has been underpinned by positioning itself at the centre of these three overlapping circles. Doing so has conferred to this Sceptred Isle a uniquely advantageous geopolitical position throughout the tumult of the Cold War and beyond.

While Britain has continued to provide a lynchpin between the USA, Europe and many parts of the wider world, what this means has changed a lot in the last 70 years. Britain’s relationship with the United States has experienced its peaks and troughs but has remained constant. Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community in 1972 led to economic interdependence but stalled any notion of a common currency or political union. But it is the last of the three circles that merit attention here.

In anticipating Brexit’s unfolding, it is the end of Empire that is instructive. There is, as The Economist wrote, an art to leaving in evidence after decolonization, of “breaking up and staying friends”. The Empire was dismantled “as haphazardly as it began, with different territories gaining independence in different ways,” wrote Piers Brendon in The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997. The piecemeal manner of its dismantling is striking. Britain’s hold in the New World was diminished by the independence of the United States in 1776. A later iteration of Empire, with its focus on Asia, was eroded by World War Two. The wartime loss of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 presaged India’s independence five years later. The Suez Crisis of 1956 dealt a blow to British influence in the Middle East. There was, for a time, an aspiration to relocate the Empire’s centre of gravity to Africa, but these colonies became independent throughout the 1960s.

Today, it feels almost otherworldly to conjure up any sense of what the Empire meant. It can also seem immoral, given how out of step much of imperial ideology was in relation to contemporary norms. But to reflect on the defence and security implications of the breakup of the Empire is fruitful. The dismantling of a globe-spanning Empire that had existed in one form or another for centuries was transformative. There was a horrific amount of violence in some theatres of decolonization. But in others, relatively amicable arrangements were made, with security networks underpinning relations between Britain and these former colonies.

The transition from Empire to Commonwealth reminds us that a realignment does not necessarily mean severance. Brexit does not mean the end of Britain’s role in Europe. Rather, it reimagines a relationship that will not suddenly vanish, no matter the dramas of the rupture yet to come.

In a RAND Europe report on ‘Defence and security after Brexit’, the authors observe that “the decision to leave the EU arguably looks likely to have minimal impact on Britain’s conventional defence apparatus in the near term”. In other words, the upheaval for Britain’s military will be moderated by the fact that the EU has never offered a major platform for cooperative military action, and because NATO will remain Britain’s preeminent multilateral military ‘club’. But, RAND opines, “Brexit may pose more immediate practical challenges for security than defence.”

Security, rather than defence, is indeed where Brexit’s impacts will be intricate. The transnational nature of criminality and terrorism and the security implications arising from huge migration flows are for Britain inherently European-facing issues. The Brexit in-tray of UK-EU cooperative policing arrangements is considerable. Policing, serious crime investigations and intelligence work simply cannot be done in the vacuum of a nation-state, given the informational revolution and the relative ease and speed of international travel. The myriad of treaties to be renegotiated will make Brexit akin to uprooting a tree that has had several decades to lay its roots.

The biggest imperial connotation of all, however, is the mindset that led to Brexit in the first place. The essence of British exceptionalism has its roots in the fact that Britain was for so long a globe-straddling superpower. It is perilously hard to argue about the often subconscious impact of the Empire on current British foreign and security policy thinking. Generationally, the impact of the Empire is now much less direct than before. However, a grandiose sense of destiny and purpose – which need not be negative qualities if harnessed in the name of order – still pervade Britain’s sense of global identity.

All national histories are exercises in selective amnesia. The myths that parts of Britain hold of itself – as a plucky nation able to survive on its own wits – are part of the Brexit story. And they spring from the defensive conundrums of bygone ages.  Even in its darkest days, such as after the fall of France in 1940, Britain was able to stand alone and survive a horrific onslaught, while Churchill began ensuring Britain’s survival and longevity as a global player through a realignment with the USA. David Reynolds has called 1940 “the Fulcrum of the twentieth century”. It is not difficult to see why the fall of France began a turn towards the Atlantic – and why this still matters today. The release of Christopher Nolan’s film Dunkirk has almost too much significance to bear.

The Empire and the wars that were fought in its name are essential components of Britain’s sense of global identity. History tells the story that explains Britain’s geopolitical positioning today. Looking historically, and thinking self-reflectively, will be the only way to navigate the humbling that Brexit is sure to spell in relation to British influence in Europe. To imperil British security during the coming realignment is a fate that must be avoided.


Dr Samir Puri is a Lecturer in War Studies where he teaches the MA module on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism. He is also serving as a strategy adviser to the Commonwealth Secretariat in the establishment of its Countering Violent Extremism unit. Before joining King’s, Dr Puri worked for the Foreign Office (2009-2015) and for RAND (2006-2009). In 2016 his book, ‘Fighting and Negotiating with Armed Groups’, was released by the IISS; and he has extended this analysis to the war in Syria for the Telegraph and Observer newspapers. 

This Strife series focuses on British Security Post-Brexit and will have contributions by Dr Samir Puri; Felix Manig on the security implications of post-Brexit asylum laws; Christina on the UK-USA relationship; and Alfonc Rakaj on British defence commitments. 

Post-Truthism: the Scourge of 2016

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By: Anastasia Beck

Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. Photo by Getty Images

The year 2016 was most certainly memorable, from the first British astronaut – Major Tim Peake – and his ascent into space to the colourful Rio Olympics.  But the two events that overshadowed the many highlights of 2016 were the unexpected vote to leave the European Union by the British people and the unprecedented election of Donald J. Trump. For many observers, Brexit and the rise of Trump signalled a transition in Western politics to that of ‘post-truthism’. In fact, the word ‘post-truth’ became the Oxford Dictionaries ‘Word of the Year’ in 2016 and was defined as ‘an adjective defined as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.’ The real question remains as to why post-truthism has emerged so powerfully into both mainstream political and media narratives and how the likes of  Trump and former-UKIP leader Nigel Farage have utilised it to their advantage.

Post-truthism in 2016 arrived in the form of the rhetoric espoused by Trump in the USA and the Leave campaign in Britain. In the UK, assertions were made that £350 million in government funds were being sent by Britain to the European Union every week. Once Britain departed from the EU through Leave, these funds would be available for agencies like the NHS. Alongside this, it was claimed that Britain would have no veto on Turkey’s accession to the EU. Across the Atlantic, similar populist claims were being made by Trump regarding the possible fakery of Obama’s birth certificate, the assertion that Muslims in New Jersey cheered the tragedy of 9/11, and that the Mexican government purposefully sent their worst immigrants to America. All of these statements have one thing in common and that is that they are all fabrications – meant to incite fear, hatred and emotions that would captivate the population. Many experts and so-called ‘fact-checkers’ deemed these claims untrue. According to one fact-checking agency, 78% of all Trump’s campaign statements were false. So how did the Trump and Farage get away with it and unpredictably go on to claim victory?

Post-truthism emanates from a deep mistrust of politicians and political elites.  Throughout the Western world, there appears to be disillusionment towards these institutions and experts who, for example, had once stated that the euro would improve our lives and that Saddam Hussein certainly possessed weapons of mass destruction. The average person views this powerful elite minority as pushing their own interests above those of the masses and manipulating popular demands for their own benefit.[1]  The discontent and dissatisfaction towards Hillary Clinton displayed in the US election is a clear example.  To many, she epitomised the establishment, something that not only Trump supporters despised, but also swathes of the American populace as well. Furthermore, we see economic marginalisation as another trigger of ‘post-truthism’.

We also see economic marginalisation as another trigger of post-truthism. Throughout the 80s, both the USA and the UK witnessed a weakening of the labor unions and the gradual dissolution of the industrial workplace. In the 21st century, many of these old industrial areas where economic hardship persists feel let down by the progressive forces of globalisation. Trump tapped into such overarching economic concerns, as a result of which any extravagant comments he made were not considered in a measured manner. It is difficult for people to listen to Washington talk about the benefits of globalisation when they have not felt those benefits.

Interestingly, the feeling of being left behind by the forces of globalisation often brings about nostalgia. We see this with slogans such as ‘Make American Great Again’ and the many social media posts of Brexiters longing for a lost England. There is a level of perceived patriotism here, and one of the reasons why Trump and Farage are able to get away with being dishonest is when someone tries to refute them, they are labelled as unpatriotic and putting the country down. Trump and the Leave campaign often resorts to patriotism and calls to ‘rally around the flag’ as a means to garner support.

Further, a big propeller of post-truthism’ last year was social media. Few politicians can boast of reaching out to a mass audience in a short space of time, but throughout history, certain demagogue-like leaders who have achieved this: Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin come to mind. Trump’s use of social media like Twitter has most certainly helped him reach a wider audience. Worryingly, this has meant that his aforementioned conspiracy theories and scaremongering have also reached many people. If information is predominately acquired from social media and the web, it is unlikely that official sources such as academics and newspapers will be listened to or trusted.

In a nutshell, post-truthism ultimately implies that emotions trump facts.  If people distrust the establishment and suffer economic hardships – which they believe has not been alleviated by politicians – they will seek a change. In 2016, that change arrived in the form of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, regardless of questionable claims made by both parties.  Any outlandish immigration policies or sexist jibes would always be outweighed by the possibility of economic upward mobility and the opportunity to wave goodbye to the political elites and the establishment.  The interesting question now is: how has ‘post-truthism’ affected Western political discourse and in what direction is it ultimately heading for?

Anastasia Beck (anastasia.beck@kcl.ac.uk) is a postgraduate student studying Intelligence and International Security in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London (KCL).  Anastasia’s research interests include counter-radicalization, the role of intelligence in both peace and conflict, and the impacts of migration, both at the macro- and micro-levels. 

Notes:

[1] Crouch. C, Post Democracy, (Polity Press: 2004)

Image source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37934790

NATO in the Crucible

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By. Dr. Zachary Wolfraim

nato_parliamentary_assembly_london_2014
NATO Parliamentary Assembly, held in London 2014. (Source: NATO Parliamentary Assembly Pre-Summit Conference)

Yet again, NATO is having a challenging year. Since the end of the Cold War, the Alliance has demonstrated its repeated ability to pivot and adapt in order to retain some level of relevance in the face of continued international instability. That being said, the newest challenges are coming from within the Alliance and from three of its key member states: the US, the UK and Turkey. NATO is now fully immersed in one of its most difficult and uncertain periods yet, as all these countries potentially redefine their roles internationally and their relationship with the organisation.

The most immediate challenge for NATO is Turkey’s drift towards authoritarianism under President Recep Erdogan. The has given Erdogan the freedom to purge his enemies, both real and imagined, from government while also allowing him to consolidate power. This is troubling for many reasons; however, for NATO, it certainly compromises its ability to act as an alliance built on shared values. NATO has previously had questionable governments in its ranks such as Portugal under Antonio Salazar, the Greek military junta in the 1970s, and Turkey during its previous periods of military rule. That said, the current trend in Turkey seems to be an increasingly colder relationship with Europe and the NATO allies. This has been coupled with renewed overtures towards Moscow, thus presenting a serious difficulty for any future NATO role.  An Erdogan-led government of an increasingly authoritarian nature presents a serious threat to NATO’s  .

To respond, NATO must continue to gently remind Turkey of the benefits of the Alliance. NATO must also prod other nations, particularly European ones, to remember Turkey’s role in NATO as well the regional pressures that Turkey is facing and which many member states have done little to alleviate. While Turkey is unlikely to leave NATO, a closer relationship with Russia would complicate NATO’s consensus-based decision-making process. Backing Erdogan into a corner will only serve to deepen the Turkish dissatisfaction with NATO and promote closer ties between Ankara and Moscow.

The second clear threat came in the form of the message sent by the British public about their continued relationship with the European Union. With the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron, the desertion of leadership posts by the main pro-Leave campaign leaders and deep turmoil within the Labour party opposition, the British political system was shaken to its foundations. Brexit has fundamentally damaged the credibility of the UK’s ability to serve as the leading international actor in Europe. Though the UK remains a critical military actor in NATO for the time being, it has nonetheless called into question its ability to maintain this position in light of Brexit-related budget shortfalls. Additionally, the deep differences in attitudes towards Europe between Scotland and Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain point to potentially further instability within the UK. While it would be wrong to doubt the UK’s resolve to act in a crisis, the Brexit vote calls into question the scale and capabilities that it can bring to bear in the future.

For now, there has been little immediate effect from the referendum save for the self-inflicted economic damage. Prime Minister Theresa May has announced her intention to invoke Article 50 in early 2017 and formally begin the process of leaving the EU, meaning most, if not all, the instruments of British policymaking will be focused on disentangling and redefining the UK’s relationship with the EU . Beyond this, the future economic impact of Brexit will likely mean diminished revenues and, by extension, NATO can insulate itself somewhat from this by strengthening its relationship with the EU and European member states and offering a more cohesive and coherent partnership between the two organisations. Depending on the shape that Brexit takes, however, it may see one of its most stalwart members reduced significantly in stature.

The final and thankfully still hypothetical prospect, for policymakers in Brussels and for many of America’s allies more generally, is the election of Donald Trump. He recently declared his intention to what could be diplomatically called a more “ blatant disregard for the rules and norms that govern participation in NATO drew a strong response from the Secretary General; however, the reality is that the lack of American participation in the Alliance would effectively demolish its effectiveness. Even questioning the commitment to NATO’s collective security guarantee, Article V, would mean that European member states would find themselves under threat. While there has always been some unease in Washington D.C. about NATO allies pulling their weight, it is the first time that a Presidential contender has threatened to leave American allies undefended.

Thus far Mr. Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements have lacked coherence; however, he has made it clear that European states would not be able to count on the US to uphold the key tenets that underpin NATO’s security guarantee. Similarly, he has expressed his affinity for President Vladimir Putin and recognised Russian claims to Crimea while also (apparently sarcastically) encouraging Russian hackers to leak information about Hilary Clinton. There is little NATO can do should Mr. Trump win the election as his approach to foreign policy is erratic at best. It nonetheless falls on the Secretary General and senior officials to continue to articulate the importance of NATO to American interests overseas.

Any one of these issues would present a serious challenge for NATO yet the Alliance is now faced with all three. This reinforces the commentary from the Wales Summit about NATO’s ability to “walk and chew gum” as crises continue to crop up in parallel rather than sequentially. NATO has continually shown its capacity to repurpose itself, often despite its own worst impulses. It must demonstrate this ability yet again.

 

 

Dr. Zachary Wolfraim recently graduated from the War Studies department where he examined how narratives shape foreign policy behaviours. He has previously worked in NATO headquarters on operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya as well as the political risk sector in London.

 

Being English/ British/ European and the politics of difference

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By: Henry Redwood

Source: https://i.guim.co.uk/
Source: https://i.guim.co.uk/

To say that it has been a bad couple of weeks to be English (or is it British, or European? I’m not sure anymore…) is an understatement. Violent and racist football supporters in France; racist abuse at home; intolerant and divisive politics in all political parties; “Brexit”; and lastly, losing a football match to a team with more volcanoes than professional footballers. Each of these events has left in its wake a series of finger-pointing and questions over who’s to blame: Roy Hodgson? The working class? The Tories? The press? A complacent left? (Im)migrants and/or refugees? This need for someone, or a collective, to be blamed within society seems to run deep. It was certainly key in the angry protest vote that saw Britain leave the EU. The primary concern within each of these allegations seems to be to find the ‘Other’, upon whom we can unburden our own responsibilities and troubles – the immigrant; the elite; the European bureaucrat; the English -and draw, perhaps, clear lines that strongly delineate what “we are” – and more often what we are not.

However, the ‘blame game’ rests on an unsustainable model, which assumes that clear lines can be drawn which delineate what “we” are – and more often what we are not. The most obvious example here is the notion of “Great Britain”, which has been variously deployed in, often contradicting, ways by different parts of the argument. Underneath each, though, is a conception of a nation – a collective – that remains unchanging; of a set of morals, values, culture etcetera, that is transcendental, frequently constructed by relational difference (we are not European; we are not fascist).

The arbitrariness of this (of course, being arbitrary makes it no less violent) is seen with the difficulty we have in deciding at which point a particular “Great Britain” began. The pretence of unity and solidity of these categories, which was pumped out throughout the referendum ‘debate’, and the confidence that we could ever know what it means to be English, British or European (or all three at once), meant that the debate was conducted from a perspective where we could decide what it meant to be ‘British’ (or even democratic). This decision was made through exclusionary identity politics, rather than considerations on how we might reconfigure these understandings of difference to try to remove the harm caused by arbitrarily signifying Self against the ‘Other’.[1] This is not only directed at those who voted in favour of Brexit; this issue has come up repeatedly in the anti-Brexist arguments since, where Brexiters are labelled as racists, ignorant, idiots, and are consequently de-politicised in the process as their voices are considered irrelevant. This ignores both our (here meaning Remain voters) responsibility, and in these cases our dependency on this ‘Other’ to define us (I am not a Brexiter, I am not racist or fascist), which was perhaps most clearly seen in the celebratory pro-European protest in London on Saturday.[2] This protest summed up this forms of identity politics, and worryingly seemed to recreate the boundaries that de-politicised the voices of Brexiters, reproducing the same political relationships that led to the ostracisation of large sections of the population in the first place; hardly a basis upon which to rebuild the shattered community.

The accusatory, and often angry, politics of the blame game seems to have occupied us elsewhere over the past decades, and perhaps it marks a trend in the new-millennium’s political landscape. At University, and elsewhere, the response to the impact of austerity has frequently been about blame and the fragmenting of larger political ideologies and structures and issues into “bite size” issues. Students are angry at the staff for not providing more contact times; the academic staff resent students for wanting a corporate-inspired ‘transferable skills’ format of education that the University was not designed to deliver, and that they are not trained to deliver.[3] It feels as though something similar has happened in the political realm, where there seems to have been a turn to (possibly thanks to, or as a result of, the digital age) a politics based on fragmented and seemingly isolated issues. A trend most evident in the rise of pressure group politics and organisations like 38 degrees.

Underlying both of these points is a sense that we can distil responsibility – and perhaps importantly with this, a sense of belonging and being – to different individuals and collectives, without considering our shared responsibility and co-dependence. As such, we are failing to explore the culpability of much larger systems that produce these harms and us as recognisable subjects we are not looking at the shared responsibility that we consequently have for the reproduction of that system and the violence that relates to it. Without this understanding, the “immigrant” remains an external entity that we have no obligation to; a burden, rather than an always-already member of our community that we are responsible for.[4] Without this understanding, the Brexit voter remains an ignorant racist, rather than someone who has been subjectivised through the same system that produces others’ (my) privilege; someone silenced for decades whilst a politics was practised that was blind to its violence, and complicit in aggravating inequality.  In both, it is the gap and relation between the Self and the ‘Other’ that needs to be addressed. Not by blaming the ‘Other’, but by reconfiguring the system as a whole. The same system that currently produces the Self and ‘Other’ as different, and as opposing polarities. In a time of rising extremism – islamophobic; homophobic; transphobic; take your pick – such reframing is more important than ever.

 

 

Henry Redwood is a third year PhD student in the War Studies department and senior editor at strife. His work engages with critical theory to explore how international courts construct truths and the normative underpinnings these project. Alongside his research Henry has previously worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and a number of (I)NGOs working in Rwanda. Twitter: @hred44

 

 

 

 

Notes:

[1] See Martha Minow, Making all the difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American law (Cornell University Press, 1991)

[2] For an excellent insight into Brexiters see here

[3] http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/transferable-people/

[4] For an wonderful article on migrant identities and borders see, Francis Saunders, ‘Where on Earth Are You?’, 38:5 (2016), pages 7-12

 

What Brexit means for UK-China ties

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By: Lauren Dickey

UK China

The people of the United Kingdom have voted to leave the European Union, and it is a bitter pill for many of its friends, partners, and allies to swallow. This is particularly true for China, one of the rising global powers that has invested no shortage of time and energy in nurturing its bilateral relationship with the United Kingdom. For the United Kingdom and China, the ‘golden relationship’ and ‘golden decade’, as Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne trumpeted last year, are equally under threat.[1] Chinese President Xi Jinping’s aspirations for a ‘united EU’ and constructive British role in ‘promoting the deepening development of China-EU ties’ now look to be fading memories.[2] A Britain outside of the EU stands a chance at saving its valuable linkages to Beijing, but the work ahead will not be easy.

Historically, the UK-China relationship faced a fair share of challenges. China fought and lost two Opium Wars with Britain in the 19th century, resulting in the UK forcing the Chinese to open their borders to trade, including in the narcotic derived from the Asian variety of the poppy flower. The Qing dynasty staunchly opposed the opium trade networks, going so far as to confiscate and destroy much of the drug. One of Britain’s first acts of war in response was to occupy Hong Kong; and, just a few years later in 1841, Hong Kong was formally ceded to the British and the first Opium War was formally ended through the Treaty of Nanking. It was only in 1997 that Hong Kong returned to Chinese control, a transition with continued ripple effects nearly twenty years later.

More recently, the UK-China relationship suggested that such historical troubles had been shelved in order to pursue mutually beneficial ties. China has invested more than US$40 billion in the UK, creating more than 6,000 jobs; a further $60 billion in trade deals were signed during Xi’s state visit last fall.[3] When China kicked off its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in early 2015, the United Kingdom broke ranks with the United States in stepping up as a founding member of the institution.[4] At a societal level, people-to-people exchanges also continue to flourish, with academic and cultural exchanges as well as tourism on the rise.

But the referendum is a game changer. Brexit threatens what lies at the core of the UK-China relationship: Britain’s promise to serve as an ‘essential partner for an opening China, for the benefit of [both] peoples.’[5] The question ahead for British policymakers — and, importantly the captain that steers the ‘leave’ ship after Prime Minister David Cameron — is whether the United Kingdom can still be the western country ‘most open’ to China’s rise.[6] It is a question that has serious reverberations for China’s economic standing at a time when its economy is slowing and it continues to search for global partners.

Assuming the two-year process to leave the EU proceeds without hiccup or member state opposition, once the UK is fully divorced from the EU, China will lose its access to the European market via Britain.[7] The United Kingdom is no longer an attractive extension of the ‘one belt, one road’ initiative to link markets from Europe to China by land and sea.[8] For existing plans to develop the ‘northern powerhouse,’ boosting economies in Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool, Britain cannot expect the deep pockets of Chinese investors to save the day.[9] Additionally, with London as host to more than 40 percent of the global market for currency trading — and the second largest offshore centre of renminbi — it will be difficult for the City to retain its lustre and gateway banking position in Europe.[10] While offshore yuan trading centres are largely dictums of Chinese policy, the Brexit will, at a minimum, yield a significant re-think of Beijing’s fiscal posture in the UK.

After the referendum, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying noted that China respects the decision of the British people, and that China will continue to examine and develop UK-China and China-EU ties with a strategic, long-term outlook in mind. She further commented that China wishes to continue cooperation and progress in the relationship between the two countries.[11] Elsewhere, however, signs of Chinese concern started to appear. An op-ed in the Chinese-language Global Times claimed the United Kingdom is back to where it started 300 years ago and that Europe is in decline. Most strikingly, the author opined ‘all that will be left is the little piece that is England.’[12]

The European Union has, somewhat ironically, already begun to assemble new pieces of its strategy toward China for the decade ahead.[13] But for Britain, no such contingency plan appears to exist. The task ahead, for British policymakers navigating the tumultuous waters of leaving the EU must thus also entail prioritising and defining what and how the UK-China relationship will evolve in the post-Brexit era. A new UK-China trade agreement, according to a China Daily estimate, will take 500 British officials ten years to negotiate. Instead, both sides will need to turn to interim steps to preserve politico-economic ties and domestic interests.[14] Furthermore, for Beijing, its largest advocate vis-à-vis the European Union trading bloc will soon recede to a cheerleader on the sidelines. Now, Beijing will likely face tougher restrictions from the EU without sufficient economic liberalisation.

None of the aforementioned challenges that lie ahead for the UK and China as the Brexit moves forward are insurmountable, but much is still unknown. To mitigate the negative consequences for the UK-China economic relationship, policymakers in both London and Beijing must begin immediately to navigate the new terms and conditions of their relationship. The Brexit may indeed be a bitter pill to swallow, but the sooner China is able to stomach this seismic geopolitical moment, the more readily it can look to adapt its ties with both the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Lauren is a first year PhD researcher in War Studies at King’s College London and the National University of Singapore. Her research explores Chinese President Xi Jinping’s strategy toward Taiwan. She is a fluent Mandarin speaker and a member of the Pacific Forum Young Leaders program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to King’s, she was a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. You can follow her on Twitter @lfdickey.

 

[1] Simon Denyer, ‘Britain is bending over backward to prove its friendship to China,’ Washington Post (14 October 2015), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/14/britain-is-bending-over-backward-to-prove-its-friendship-to-china/.

[2] Andrew Bounds, ‘China’s Xi Jinping urges UK to stay in EU,’ FT (23 October 2015), http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df78cae4-797e-11e5-933d-efcdc3c11c89.html#axzz4CWfAzGhZ.

[3] ‘The Brexit result will have China worried,’ Time (24 June 2016), http://time.com/4381309/china-brexit-eu-trade-uk-economy/; ‘China and Britain head into golden era of relations,’ The Telegraph (20 October 2015), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/china-watch/politics/11936897/china-britain-relations-new-era.html.

[4] ‘UK announces plans to join Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,’ HM Treasury (12 March 2015), https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-announces-plans-to-join-asian-infrastructure-investment-bank.

[5] David Cameron, ‘My visit can begin a relationship to benefit China, Britain and the world,’ The Guardian (1 December 2013), https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/02/david-cameron-my-visit-to-china.

[6] Ibid.

[7] The European Union is currently China’s largest trade partner, sending US$389 billion worth of imports into the trading bloc in 2015.

[8] Andrew Browne, ‘A wrench in the U.K.-China relationship,’ Wall Street Journal (24 June 2016), http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-wrench-in-the-u-k-china-relationship-1466768571.

[9] Sarah Gordon, ‘Northern Powerhouse takes the lion’s share of FDI,’ FT (24 May 2016), http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/63d695da-20e8-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c.html#axzz4CWfAzGhZ.

[10] Enoch Yiu, ‘Brexit could dull London’s sheen as offshore yuan centre,’ South China Morning Post (19 June 2016), http://www.scmp.com/business/markets/article/1976870/brexit-could-dull-londons-sheen-offshore-yuan-centre; Mark Gilbert, ‘London Could Lose Its Euro Trading If U.K. Leaves EU,’ Bloomberg View (16 March 2016), https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-03-16/london-could-lose-its-euro-trading-if-u-k-leaves-eu.

[11] ‘2016年6月24日外交部发言人华春莹主持例行记者会 [Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on June 24, 2016],’ PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs,  http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/web/fyrbt_673021/t1375085.shtml.

[12] ‘英国回300年前原点，欧洲加速衰落 [England back to starting poitn of 300 years ago, Europe increasingly in decline]’, 环球网 [Global Times] (24 June 2016), http://opinion.huanqiu.com/1152/2016-06/9080633.html.

[13] ‘Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council: Elements for a new EU strategy on China,’ European Commission High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, 22 June 2016.

[14] ‘UK vote to leave the EU blows the whole European plan wide open,’ China Daily (24 June 2016), http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2016-06/24/content_25841499.htm.