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    US China hawks to press UK minister for tougher line on Beijing

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    A Republican-led group of China hawks from the US Congress will visit Westminster on Friday where they are expected to meet the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, for lunch and press for the UK to take a tougher line on Beijing.The 11-strong delegation is led by the Republican congressman Mike Gallagher, who chairs a high-profile, newly created China committee. Some fear a strident anti-Beijing tone will alienate centrist and left-leaning politicians in the UK.Gallagher has called for a total ban on the Chinese-owned app TikTok, and argued in the committee’s first prime-time hearing that the US and China were locked in an “existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century”.The group of eight Republicans and three Democrats – one senator and 10 from the House – will see Wallace informally in a restaurant away from the Ministry of Defence building, where they are almost certain to lobby him in person.The MoD declined to say whether the meeting meant Wallace supported Gallagher’s anti-China positions. “Ministers routinely engage with elected representatives from different governments to discuss our respective policy positions on the key issues,” an official said.Heavy Republican-led China lobbying has been seen as counterproductive in Europe, where critics of Beijing’s authoritarianism, such as the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), want to build a cross-party consensus for firmer action against Beijing.One British-based China expert said: “The US select committee has a reputation for being exceptionally hawkish on China, and it’s clear the energy comes from the Republican side.” They warned there could be a clash with Ipac when they meet.A group of eight British MPs and peers, including members of the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, are due to hold a joint event with Ipac on Friday before the lunch with Wallace. They are expected to include the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, Labour’s Rushanara Ali and the Lib Dem peer David Alton.A statement released by Gallagher before the visit set out the visiting delegation’s aspirations. “Chinese Communist party aggression is global, and the United States and United Kingdom face common economic, military and ideological threats posed by the CCP,” the congressman began.“For the sake of both our nations and the sake of the free world, we must work hand in hand to stand up to CCP tech theft, united front work [Beijing’s global influence operation], transnational repression and flagrant violations of our sovereignty.”The US delegation’s arrival in the UK comes shortly after the former prime minister Liz Truss began a five-day visit to Taiwan, where she gave a speech calling for an “economic Nato” to tackle Beijing’s authoritarianism and growing military strength.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTaiwan’s independence from China could only be protected by “hard power”, Truss said, arguing that the answer was greater defence cooperation between western nations in the Indo-Pacific.Leaked Pentagon papers from February show that Wallace was considering whether to base one of the UK’s two aircraft carriers in either Japan or South Korea after 2025, which the US said would demonstrate Britain was committed to a previously announced Indo-Pacific tilt in foreign policy.Worries about the economic and military rise of China are a rare bipartisan issue in the US, with the Pentagon closely monitoring the development of Beijing’s armed forces and sabre-rattling over Taiwan. But in the UK, Labour has argued that Britain should show realism and focus on Russia and the Euro-Atlantic rather than the Indo-Pacific. More

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      Joe Biden to use Nato summit to atone for damage of Trump years

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      Three years ago it was Donald Trump who stunned Nato members at a summit in Brussels, warning that he may be prepared to pull the US out of the western military alliance if its other members did not increase their defence spending.At a summit in the same city on Monday, it falls to Joe Biden to repair the damage from four years of his predecessor’s freewheeling theatrics, although experts caution that the Trump era will have lasting consequences.Rhetorically, at least, the omens are favourable. The US president declared Nato’s article 5, under which an armed attack against one member is deemed an attack against them all, a “sacred commitment” last week.Similar language and a respectful tone, long a Biden trademark, are expected in the Belgian capital, not least because the US wants Nato, along with the G7, to take a more robust line against Russia, particularly on cyberwarfare, and even China, not traditionally seen as an opponent.US officials were confidently briefing before the summit that “this will be the first time that the Nato countries will be addressing the security challenge from China”.The alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has promised a new cybersecurity policy and has said relations with Russia, from where most hacking emanates, were at their lowest point since the end of the cold war.Karin von Hippel, the director general of the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said: “Biden is arguably the United States’ most experienced foreign policy president. He really does value alliances and knows they are needed to tackle problems like China.“But Nato allies also know that four years can go by pretty quickly in world affairs. They know that Trump, or a politician like him, could return to the presidency soon. They have to imagine a world where the US is not there all the time.”Until Biden’s election, Nato had been paralysed or in retreat. Three years ago, Trump arrived late to a morning session and bulldozed into a discussion about Ukraine’s application for membership and the situation in Afghanistan with a theme of his own.The president accused the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, of refusing to spend more on defence and went on to declare that Nato allies would have to raise their spending by January 2019 or Washington would go it alone.No firm commitments were extracted in the emergency discussion that ensued and most leaders left hastily, but Trump held a press conference and declared, in a parallel universe, that the summit had been a great success. “I’m very consistent. I’m a very stable genius,” he said, repeating an already familiar phrase.Nato officials pared back the 2019 summit in London but Trump ensured it was even shorter anyway, storming out after a group of leaders were caught on video ridiculing his lengthy press conferences. The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was two-faced, Trump said, accusing Ottawa of not spending enough on defence.It was almost something of a relief that the coronavirus pandemic intervened in 2020, although Trump ordered the withdrawal of 12,000 US troops from Germany, a decision Biden has reversed. The idea that other Nato members should increase their defence spending and share more of the burden has, however, united a string of US presidents.At the Nato summit in Cardiff in 2014, when Barack Obama was president and Biden his deputy, members agreed to reverse cuts in defence spending and lift it above 2% of GDP. Helped somewhat by falls in GDP related to the pandemic, the UK will hit 2.29% in 2021 and France 2.01%, but Germany’s spending stands at 1.53%.Nor is Biden’s commitment to US militarism absolute. He followed through with Trump’s announcement of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though other Nato allies such as the UK would have preferred to continue the long-running peacekeeping mission.Stoltenberg was asked at a press conference on Friday whether Trump’s absence would allow other alliance members to go easy on defence spending. During his reply, he argued that the “transatlantic bond in Nato goes beyond individual political leaders”.Von Hippel, however, cautioned against over-confident talk at what is likely to be an upbeat gathering. “The threat of another Trump should make the Europeans less complacent,” she said. More

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      The Guardian view on defence and foreign policy: an old-fashioned look at the future | Editorial

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      The integrated review offers a nostalgic – at times, even anachronistic – response to the challenges of the 21st century. Its intent is laudable: acknowledging that attempting to defend the status quo is not enough, and seeking to carve out a path ahead. It recognises the multiple threats that the UK faces – from future pandemics to cyber-attacks – and the need for serious investment in science and technology. But overall, “global Britain” offers a hazy vision of a country that is looking east of Suez once more, wedded to the symbolic power of aircraft carriers, and contemplating a nuclear response to cyberthreats.The policy paper is in essence a response to three big shifts: the rise of China, the related but broader decline of the existing global order, and Brexit. Two of these confront democracies around the world. But the last is a self-inflicted wound, which the government appears determined to deepen. And the need to deal with the first two is not in itself a solution to the third, as this policy paper sometimes seems to imagine.The plan essentially recognises the move that is already taking place towards a warier, more critical approach to China, away from the woefully misjudged “golden era” spearheaded by George Osborne, and the fact that parameters will be set for us by the tougher approach of the US, in particular. It accepts that we must engage on issues such as climate change, and that we are not in a new cold war – we live in a globalised economy – albeit that there is likely to be more decoupling than many anticipated.But it does not try to explain how the UK can square the circle of courting investment while shielding itself from undue Chinese influence and expanding regional alliances. Australia is currently finding out what happens when Beijing is angered by a strategic shift.The tilt to the Indo-Pacific may – like Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” – fail to live up to its advertising. But it is true that Britain has paid insufficient attention to Asia, and is wise to pursue stronger ties with Five Eyes nations and other democracies in the region. These relationships will sometimes be problematic; India is the world’s largest democracy, but under Narendra Modi is looking ever less democratic. The pursuit of new partnerships could have been “in addition to” rather than “instead of”. Yet Britain is snubbing old, reliable, largely like-minded friends with clear common interests. The review is written almost as if the EU did not exist, preferring to mention individual member states. That seems especially childish when it also identifies Russia as an “active threat”. Nor is it likely – even if the UK joins the Trans-Pacific free-trade pact – that countries thousands of miles away can fully compensate for the collapse in trade with the EU that saw Britain record a £5.6bn slump in exports to the bloc in January. Geography matters.Behind the rhetoric of the review is a country that has failed to match its words and ambitions to its actions. Britain boasts of its soft power and talks of upholding the rule of law internationally – yet has declared itself happy to break international law when it considers it convenient. Though the paper promises to restore the commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid “when the fiscal situation allows”, slashing the budget is not only undermining the UK’s standing, but global security and stability too.Most strikingly, after 30 years of gradual disarmament since the end of the Soviet Union, and despite its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, Britain is raising the cap on its nuclear warheads – a decision met with dismay by the UN Elders and others, and bafflement by analysts. Mr Johnson has not deigned to explain why.The review has rightly asked difficult questions. While Joe Biden has brought the US back to multilateralism, his predecessor has shown that the longer-term parameters of US policy may not be as predictable as Britain once believed. Old certainties have gone. But the new challenges cannot be met by turning back to nukes and aircraft carriers. The government should have looked closer to home and been bolder in addressing the future. More

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      Church leaders urge UK government to sign UN anti-nuclear treaty

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      The leadership of the Church of England is calling on the UK government to stand with 50 other nations in signing a historic international treaty banning nuclear weapons.
      Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, have put their names alongside those of 29 bishops to a letter published in the Observer and reproduced below saying that the UK’s support for the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons would give hope to people seeking a peaceful future.
      The treaty will come into force on 22 January 2021, having reached the required 50-signatory threshold after Honduras ratified it three weeks ago. None of the world’s nuclear powers, however, have signed up, and the US has called support for the move a “strategic error”.
      But António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said the treaty’s ratification was “the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons”. Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said it was “a victory for humanity, and a promise of a safer future”. More