Britain has its cake and eats it; a Wolf-Warrior winner; Liechtenstein’s China tie-up
Hello, and welcome to China Influence Monitor, a weekly newsletter published by CEPA and Coda Story and edited by me, Edward Lucas. We track [the westward footprint of] China’s influence operations, and their effects on politics, economies, societies and alliances across Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia and Europe.
BRITAIN’S CHINA FUMBLE
A big rethink of the UK’s world role aims to integrate military, diplomatic, financial, soft-power and other responses to Russia (the “acute” threat) and China (the “systemic” one). The problem: Britain still wants strong trade and investment ties with China: “cakeism” say critics.
An obvious start for the new approach would be to use Britain’s clout in eastern Europe against China’s divide-and-rule tactics there. But when foreign secretary Dominic Raab met his Baltic counterparts, talks focused on Russia and climate change: understandable, but he missed an opportunity on China. Raab should have publicly praised Lithuania for snubbing last month’s 17+1 summit and stiffened resolve in Estonia and Latvia to shun the Chinese-run beauty contest too. He could have also urged all three to boost ties with Taiwan — another quick symbolic win.