UK seems to be sleepwalking into a cold war with China

Though life has been made miserable for most of us, it has at least been made easy for historians.

Whether it is a coincidence, evidence of a higher power, or merely a straightforward piss-take that the UK’s first coronavirus case was recorded on January 31, the day we left the European Union is, at this stage, a matter of personal choice.

Now it must also be noted that within 30 minutes of the announcement that Oxford University has produced a viable COVID-19 vaccine, Dominic Raab was on his feet in the House of Commons, to formally announce the suspension of the UK’s extradition treaty with China.

Which crisis will come to be the most severe? It’s too early to say, but we can at least know that the first one we inflicted upon ourselves for no reason at all, the second was an accident of nature and the third is likely to be inflicted upon us by someone much more powerful than we are. It is reasonable to state that it does not bode well.

Arguably, it is a relief to have so much else going horrifically wrong, to keep our minds off the full horrors of this high-speed sleepwalking into a cold war with China.

The signposts are pleasingly familiar too. On Sunday, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, was on The Andrew Marr Show, and was shown the appalling footage of Chinese Uighur Muslims, heads shaven and blindfolded, sat on the floor in numbered vests and being led on to trains.

The ambassador’s response was to say, not in so many words, that the footage right in front of him did not exist. That it could be anything, a “transfer of prisoners” perhaps, or, who knows, the recording of a big budget music video.

Those who regularly consume the Sunday morning politics shows will be familiar with the tactic of just flat out denying the evidence put on a screen in front of you.

Brazenly claiming black is white is the go-to manoeuvre for the Utterly-Bang-To-Rights and no one should be surprised there’s been plenty of it in the last few years.

That the UK has suspended its extradition treaty with China means it has chosen to become a safe haven for Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters. The UK is also offering a route to British citizenship for the more than three million Hongkongers who have British National Overseas status.

This, certainly, is the right thing to do, though the potential repercussions are real.

Taking people’s rights away is a serious business. Last month, Dominic Raab, Priti Patel and co all celebrated the passing of the Immigration Bill, and the successful stripping away of rights from their own people.

On social media, the Conservative Party made little shareable graphics of the Union Jack, above the tagline “Ending Free movement”. So from now on, the rights that we all had, to live, to work, to retire, to buy property, to receive free healthcare in 27 different countries have now been removed.

In 2016, EU figures, led by Guy Verhofstadt, suggested that the millions of UK citizens who didn’t want their rights to be taken away could be offered EU citizenship, a move that so angered Theresa May that it threatened to derail the negotiations.

There is little that can possibly anger a government that wants to take their people’s rights from them than the attempts by other countries to restore them. Of course, it’s fine for the EU to antagonise the UK. There is precious little we can do about it, having chosen of our own free will to become an irrelevant, third-tier country.

Liu Xiaoming has warned there will be “consequences” for antagonising China. For now, these are only words. But they do mean the next crisis, that began today, could be the gravest yet.