Russia and China have been accused of “exploiting” technology in a war on the free world as the two nations try to force Britain to become “a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker”.
A report by the Foreign Affairs Committee warns today that foreign powers are “exploiting technological developments to further their geopolitical agendas”, risking Britain being left behind.
The cross-party Commons committee argues that “critical technologies underpinning our everyday lives are increasingly important as an arena of systemic competition between nation-states”.
Liam Byrne MP, a Labour member of the committee, said: “What we’ve got to do is make sure that Britain isn’t the weak link in the defences of the Western alliance.
“China is building a digital Silk Road around the world. And there are very real concerns about how China will exfiltrate data and technology to provide power that its leadership is seeking by 2030.”
The committee’s report also calls on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to “fundamentally reassess” the ways in which it works with Britain’s allies to stop hostile foreign powers stealing British expertise and intellectual property for their own ends.
“Failure to adapt will have devastating consequences for our security, prosperity and global influence,” it said.
Unless Britain steps up to the mark and beefs up the Foreign Office to help protect British industry and strategic interests, according to the committee, there is a serious risk of Britain becoming another also-ran in the vital area of international standards and norms.
The Foreign Affairs committee’s warning follows an unprecedented joint statement earlier this week by the heads of MI5 and the FBI. They cautioned that China is trying to “set standards and norms that would enable it to dominate the international order”.
Ken McCallum, director-general of the Security Service, said on Wednesday: “Clandestine espionage methodology isn’t always necessary. Take the tale of Smith’s Harlow, a UK-based precision engineering firm.”
Chinese company Futures Aerospace approached Smiths in 2017 about a potential merger. However, after completing an initial £3m technology transfer and training deal, the Chinese pulled out, leaving the husk of Smith’s to collapse into administration in early 2020.
Research by the Carnegie Endowment, a US think tank, found in December that American companies were feeling “threatened by the way China is mobilising around standard setting”.
China’s ruling Communist Party has made its intentions plain, having published a strategy entitled China Standards 2035. It calls for China to influence future global industrial standards for technologies such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things – a term used for sensors in anything from shipping containers to wind farms.
Meanwhile, China’s industrial advantage has accelerated it away from the West. Huawei, for instance, holds more than 6,000 patents on technology used in 5G mobile phones. The Shenzhen-headquartered company has begun using Western courts to enforce its intellectual property rights, settling a high profile US patent infringement trial against mobile network Verizon last year.
Huawei has faced accusations for decades that its core business of computer network equipment was built on stolen intellectual property. Cisco Systems’ general counsel Mark Chandler accused Huawei executive Charles Ding in 2012 of trying to cover up a corporate admission that it had unlawfully copied Cisco source code in one of its product lines.
Meanwhile, China-facing commentators have begun warning that the West faces falling behind as state-directed enterprises seek more control over global standards.
“Companies must be prepared to face market share losses and become increasingly dependent on Chinese digital solutions,” wrote Shawn Kim, a senior Morgan Stanley analyst, in 2021 for the South China Morning Post.
The FCDO has been contacted for comment.
