China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Liu Xiaoming, could hardly have been clearer. “We want to be your friend,” he told reporters in early July, not long before British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to ban equipment purchases from the Chinese telecommunications group Huawei on espionage concerns. “But if you want to make China a hostile country, you will have to bear the consequences,” Liu ominously warned.
Britain will soon find out what those consequences will be. That’s because it has made a remarkable U-turn in its China policy that goes far beyond the decision to block Huawei, which has now overtaken Samsung as the world’s largest supplier of smartphones. During his time in office, former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron talked of new “golden era” of Sino-British relations and made the country arguably the most pro-Chinese state in Western Europe. Johnson has unwound all this in little more than six months, leaving in its place an administration dominated by newly converted fervent China hawks.
