Britain will launch cyberattacks on Beijing

PRC jubilates the Chagos deal; PRC’s military aggression laid bare at global conference

Observing China is the essential newsletter to understand the UK-PRC relationship, explained in the context of global developments.

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As leaders around the world (but not in Beijing) commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the Chinese capital, they are faced with conflicting opinions from other powers about how to deal with the PRC.

It is not uncommon for various departments with a government to present differing views on the same topic which almost conflict with one another. The much-awaited Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published on Monday, elaborated on how the PRC is a ‘sophisticated and persistent challenge.’ The Review pointed to the PRC’s ‘unprecedented nuclear expansion’, its critical role in supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine, and its espionage and cyber operations in the United Kingdom (UK).

How will His Majesty’s (HM) Government consolidate this messaging on the PRC from the Ministry of Defence, with that from other parts of the Government, who consistently speak of ‘the value of engagement with China’?

And will there be acknowledgement from HM Government of the words of Pete Hegseth, Defence Secretary of the United States (US), who specified that Washington is looking away from Ukraine to increase their focus on the Indo-Pacific – their ‘priority theatre’ – precisely because of the PRC’s aggression?

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