The ‘China Audit’ one year on: Clarification, procrastination, or obfuscation?
Part 4: Any the wiser, continued
The Thinker | No. 09/2026
This article is the fourth and final part of a mini-series analysing the ‘China Audit’ one year after the publication of His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s National Security Strategy. Part 1 can be read here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.
The intended outcomes – or ‘deliverables’ in Whitehall speak – of the ‘China Audit’ were mutually contradictory. How could guidance to business, academia, and others be clear if no audit document was published? David Lammy, then Foreign Secretary, declared, ‘Honourable Members will understand that much of the audit was conducted at high classification.’ However, Honourable Members did not understand. As Dame Emily Thornberry, Chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, commented:
We were promised a ‘full and comprehensive audit on the breadth of the UK’s [United Kingdom] relationship with [the People’s Republic of] China [PRC]’. Instead, we were given three paragraphs on page 39 of the National Security Strategy…We haven’t seen the Audit and we don’t know what’s in the strategy – which should apply to government, local government, business, universities, and particularly the technology sector.
Surely, we all need to know this so that we can act together in our approach towards [the PRC]. The Government says the purpose of the Audit was to ensure that we have a consistent attitude towards [the PRC] – how can we do that if we don’t know what it is?
The addition of three – anodyne – paragraphs in the National Security Strategy (NSS) hardly constitute clear guidance. Worse, perhaps, is that the ‘Strategic Framework’ for guiding departments within His Majesty’s (HM) Government, presumably classified as secret, must be off limits to most civil servants – a very small percentage of whom are vetted to that level.
The proof of a strategy fit for purpose lies particularly in reconciling economic and trade policy with environmental and security concerns, in particular, those brought by the advance of science and technology. The silence from Lammy (and the NSS) on the Chinese science and technology threat is extraordinary – just a short mention of a joint commission on science, nothing on how or where the boundaries of cooperation with a hostile power are to be set.
An example of this failure is the contrast between the March 2025 signing by Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, of a Memorandum of Understanding for a Clean Energy Partnership with the PRC’s National Energy Administration in Beijing, which included offshore wind, and the decision not to allow Chinese company Ming Yang to invest in production of offshore wind turbines in Scotland. A thought-through strategy should surely have already decided the parameters for investment in the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
This same lack of clarity is evident in investment by Chinese Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturers. Concerns about eventual dependency and control of the British automobile industry, or the ability of the Chinese to switch off trucks, vans and cars (i.e., the UK’s logistics) via the cellular module or to extract data have yet to be addressed. Even less edifying is the muddle at the Ministry of Defence (MOD), which on the one hand bans Chinese vehicles from certain sites, and advises its people not to talk in Chinese cars for fear of eavesdropping nor to plug in their smart phones, which allows data copying; yet at the same time has over 1,700 Chinese vehicles in its transport fleet.
There is scant evidence that HM Government collectively – both across government departments and in consultation with outside expertise – has worked up a plan to establish a set of trade and investment rules which defends Britain against the systemic attack of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) model and reinforces the economic system and values in which we believe. To its credit, HM Government has mildly reinforced the National Security and Investment Act and the Research Collaboration Advice Team (which advises academia and others on science and technology collaboration), both 2021 legacies of the previous Conservative administration.
A coherent strategy requires better government structures and better international coordination
Part 2 of this mini-series considered the need for top level and regular government meetings on the PRC, with lower-level meetings to monitor implementation of policy as well as regular collective agreement on science and technology policy by departmental scientific advisers through the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Committee. A prerequisite for a clear PRC policy is clarity about who ‘owns’ or is ultimately responsible for such a policy.
HM Government should adopt a whole-of-society approach to combat the much-used CCP tactic of going around the back of central governments and dealing directly with local governments, which are often less aware of CCP issues and methods. In the light of the ‘Manchesterism’ championed by Andy Burnham, presumed incoming Prime Minister, this assumes greater importance.
There is scant evidence that the UK is working more closely with its allies, the ‘Five Eyes’ countries, the European Union (EU), and major Asian economies. To return to EVs, no account appears to be taken of the American ‘Connected Vehicle Rule’, which bans Chinese connectivity software and hardware in vehicles, even though the United States (US) is the market destination of over 15% of British vehicles. If the EU takes serious measures against Chinese vehicle exports, the UK will become a dumping ground.
The current government would surely not quarrel with the 2023 Integrated Review Refresh and its emphasis on ‘Shape the international environment – Shape, balance, compete, and cooperate to create the conditions for an open and stable international order’. Yet, the current PRC policy, which one senior official described at a non-attributable briefing in early 2025 as ‘say more internally, say less externally’, is hardly designed to give Britain a leading role in shaping the current most important geopolitical issue. Others cannot follow if they do not know where they are being led.
Conclusion
Publishing a strategy is not beyond a Labour government. In January 2009, Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister, issued an official PRC strategy paper: ‘The UK and China: A Framework for Engagement’.
Despite its urgency, the current prime ministerial and subsequent ministerial reshuffles will delay work on building a PRC strategy – or ‘strategic framework’, HM Government’s preferred term. The economic and national security threats from the PRC’s science and technology, industrial policies, undervaluation of the currency, and more are already being felt; jobs and prosperity are already being eroded. These effects will be felt even more keenly in the lifetime of this government.
A year ago, Lammy said, ‘The Audit has painted a complex picture, but it has provided us with a clear way forward. The UK’s approach to China will be founded on progressive realism’. This sounds more like an art movement than a political guide. Caspar David Friedrich’s famous painting ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ comes to mind.
Appendix: Actions to ensure clarity on PRC policy
Without the will to resource or implement, there is no strategy. Below is a selection of actions which would show that the new Prime Minister is more serious than their predecessor about implementing a thought-through strategy. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Recognise that the PRC is a threat by including it on the ‘enhanced tier’ of the Foreign Interests Registration Scheme under the National Security Act.
Set out in detail those areas where Britain can cooperate with the PRC and within what limits (hitherto much has been said about cooperation on ‘global goods’, but no coherent guidelines have been produced).
Issue a coherent policy on Chinese investment in the UK, which protects long-term economic and national security and starts with the automotive industry.
Put forward measures to reduce Britain’s supply chain dependency.
Under the recently passed National Security (State Threats) Act, designate the United Front Work Department of the CCP as a hostile organisation.
Allot greater funding for the National Security Strategic Investment Fund, to ensure that startup companies with dual-use or emerging technologies do not sell out to Chinese funding.
Populate the ‘debarment list’ of the Procurement Act with those Chinese companies the adoption of whose technologies represent a threat to national security (over two years since the Act was passed, the debarment list remains empty).
Work with the EU and other free and open countries to establish arrangements for trade and investment, similar to those envisaged for the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Charles Parton OBE is Chief Adviser to the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Research Fellow in International Security at RUSI.
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