President Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has warned Britain not to let China dump on its market cheap goods that the US has hit with stringent tariffs. In his words, “the UK has become an all-too compliant servant of the Chinese Communist Party”, won over by an “authoritarian mercantilist regime bearing gifts”.

This language is robustly trenchant, or downright rude, depending on one’s expectations in these transactional days. But Navarro has a point – indeed rather a lot of them. This is a good time to scrutinise what is presented as the Labour Government’s China policy, and take stock of its objectives. Navarro’s accusation reaches far beyond the sphere of economic relations. Absent the promised government “China Audit”, and ahead of the equally long-awaited Defence Review, what do we know to be the Government’s approach to engagement with the Chinese Communist Party-state, and how will this sit with Britain’s newly complex relationship with Trump 2.0 America? 

Navarro has in mind the UK track record on China. To illuminate this, we need to look back at recent official critiques of UK China policy. During the previous Conservative government, in July 2023 the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published a 200-page China report laying bare the inadequacy of UK China policy to protect and pursue national interests and international issues of principle.

The government’s formal response emerged in September 2023. It repeated language from the 2021 Integrated Policy Review and its subsequent “Refresh”, defining China as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge” – a phrase with no apparent meaning – to which the correct approach was to “protect, align, engage.” According to this document existing and recent legislation “addresses many of the (ISC’s) concerns”, although there were “areas we could do better”.

These anodyne statements do not sit well with the ISC’s criticism, such as in the passages below:

“It is nevertheless concerning that the security community, and the Government in general, were aware of many of these issues several years ago, and yet we are only beginning to see the introduction of measures taken to protect UK sovereign interests. The lack of action to protect our assets from a known threat was a serious failure … from which the UK may feel the consequences for years to come. 

“Even now, HMG is focusing on short-term or acute threats, and failing to think long -term.” Others shared this concern. Around this time, in the context of a Chinese spy scandal in Parliament, Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused the Prime Minister and Parliament of being “too weak” on China. (In the previous January he had been more robust, describing Sunak as “too submissive” to the PRC). 

What has changed under the new Labour government? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer is “very little”. Its new China policy mantra – as vacuous as the slogans of the CCP itself – runs “cooperate where we can, compete where we need to, challenge where we must”. Sadly, without definitions for can, need to and must, the three Cs mean precisely nothing. Instead, in January 2025 we see the Chancellor in Beijing channelling more CCP-speak in pledging “respectful and consistent relations with China” – for which Chinese zero-sum realpolitik is not well known. The myth of productive dialogue continues, as shown in a recent government assurance: “the UK’s pragmatic relationship with China will always be rooted in the interests of working people in the UK”. The fate of British Steel suggests otherwise. 

The previous UK government only banned Huawei from Britain’s UK 5G when threatened by Secretary of State Pompeo with exclusion from US intelligence exchanges. The new Labour government has declared that the UK would “never be forced to choose to choose between the US and China”, but that assertion is being swept away by the Trump 2.0 tariff tornado. In belated shows of resolution, British Steel has been semi-rescued from Chinese sabotage; thousands of solar panels made by Uyghur slaves will no longer be installed and virtue-signalled as clean and green; and the likes of Shein may not achieve a London IPO.

But these reactive measures do not add up to a serious China policy. A recent government note on the bilateral relationship still replays the decrepit cliche that “despite... challenges, significant opportunities still remain for the relationship between the UK and China, including strong economic links and cooperation on the global stage”. “Cooperation” seems still to include fighting climate change and promoting world health, neither of which objectives has ever figured convincingly on the CCP geopolitical playlist. Stronger economic links to China now mean more dependences on an adversary. 

The three Cs “policy” is wishful thinking. The CCP regards the UK as a decadent relic of colonial oppression, cut adrift from Europe, unsure whether Trump 2.0 cares a fig for any former “special relationship” and embroiled in the Ukraine conflict without the power, wealth and leadership needed to influence the outcome. Why should China co-operate with Britain on trade, even if a level playing field was ever a prospect? Likewise, when China plays by no rules since those of binary Leninist struggle, what hope is there for Britain to compete successfully? 

And most importantly, is there any evidence that UK “challenges”, whether on human rights, espionage in Parliament, oppression in Hong Kong, expansionism in the China Seas , malign intent towards Taiwan and all the rest of the familiar litany, have ever had the slightest effect – especially because they are pursued in contradictory parallel with the first two optimistic aspirations?

This is all too clear from accounts of the Foreign Secretary’s attempt to air “serious concerns” about Hong Kong with his Chinese counterpart in October 2024, and Prime Minister Starmer’s distinctly asymmetric audience with Xi Jinping the following month at G20.

When the Defence Review finally emerges, strategic thinking of a different order will be needed if the UK Carrier Strike Group is to sail purposefully past Taiwan.