Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Rejected
Paragraph: 24
Assess China under CCP to determine its threat level to national security
Recommendation
The Committee supports the Government’s assessment that China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “an epoch-defining and systemic challenge”. China seeks to erode the current rules-based international order by exploiting weaknesses in the system. Rather than looking to act as the world’s policeman in a mutually beneficial system, China’s interest is in establishing dominance over its wider region to purely Chinese advantage. In military terms, China’s publicly stated ambition to “fight and win” global wars by 2049 illustrates the threat it poses to international security. An important waypoint is China’s goal of establishing a fully modernised military—and a peer adversary of the United States—by 2027. The Government should carry out an assessment of China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to consider whether it should be labelled as a threat to national and international security.
Government Response Summary
The government explicitly disagrees with the need for an assessment to label China, stating it would be impossible, impractical, and unwise to sum up China in one word.
Paragraph Reference:
24
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
As we outlined in IRR23, the Government recognises that China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a systemic challenge with implications for almost every area of government policy and the everyday lives of British people. The CCP is explicit in its aim to shape a China centric international order more favourable to its authoritarian system. It has pursued rapid and opaque military modernisation, underpinned by colossal military investment. IRR23 also states that in responding to this systemic challenge, the UK’s policy towards China will be anchored in our core national interests and our higher interest in an open and stable international order based on the UN Charter and international law. This means that we will take swift and robust action to protect our interests if they are threatened by the CCP’s actions and intent. It also means that where it is consistent with our interests, we will engage constructively with the Chinese government, business and people. Under this policy the Government is aligned with our closest allies and partners and will advance British interests whilst defending our security and values. The Government therefore disagrees that there is a need to carry out an assessment of how to label China under the Chinese Communist Party. As the then -Foreign Secretary set out in his Mansion House speech, to sum up China itself in one word – whether ‘threat ‘or ‘partner’ or ‘adversary’ would be impossible, impractical and unwise.