UK urged to show sincerity, pragmatism in developing ties with Beijing as MI5 chief hypes China threat

While the UK spy chief recently warned about China's "significant risk" to the country, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy is reportedly planning to visit China next week in a bid to reset ties, according to media reports on Wednesday. 

The move reflects UK's contradictory mindset that on one hand it seeks to suppress China, while on the other is eying deeper engagement with Beijing, observers said, urging the new Labour government to show sincerity and adopt a pragmatic approach to steer China-UK relations.

The British Security Services known as MI5 published its annual update on the threats faced by the country on Tuesday, in which it primarily warned of the dangers posed by Russia and Iran as well as growing concerns about al Qaeda and Islamic State, Reuters reported. 

Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, said that China still remained a significant risk, "particularly its threat to obtaining sensitive information from businesses and academia," the report noted. 

However, McCallum considers that China is "different," and because of Britain's multi-layered complex relationship with Beijing, it requires a more nuanced approach. "The UK-China economic relationship supports UK growth, which underpins our security. And there are also risks to be managed," he said.

Zhao Junjie, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of European Studies, said the remarks by the MI5 chief reflect the contradictory mindset of the UK as well as the whole Western world, as China's rise poses a significant challenge to the rules of the game and global governance dominated by the West. 

Yet bilateral interests between China and the UK have never been so deeply intertwined, as the pair finds themselves in a complex relationship characterized by both competition and cooperation, Zhao told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"As a result, the UK has viewed China as an adversary in terms of ideology, prompting various forms of containment and suppression against it, but meanwhile the UK cannot decouple from China as doing so would greatly harm its own interests," Zhao noted.

In a separate Reuters report a day after the report was released, sources said Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who has vowed to overhaul his country's ties with China, is set to visit Beijing and Shanghai next week in an attempt to seek "less confrontational ties." 

However, his itinerary has not yet been finalized, another person familiar with the matter said.

Since British Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office in July, the new government has faced grave challenges both at home and abroad with instability in domestic politics, social unrest that saw days of rioting targeting asylum seekers and Muslims following the murder of three young girls, a severe economic crisis, and a passive position that has stuck with the UK following Brexit, said the expert.

To address these challenges, the new government is likely to take a more flexible, cautious and pragmatic approach in its relations with China, rather than simply following the lead of the US or the EU. This is because there is significant room for cooperation between the two sides in many areas of interest, such as green economic transformation, renewable energy, biopharmaceuticals and the creation of jobs, Zhao noted.

Experts urged the UK to demonstrate sincerity and abandon its twisted mindset if it wishes to recalibrate relations with Beijing.