Monitoring Desk
LONDON: The United Kingdom (UK) on Monday detailed plans to increase military and security spending to confront the threat posed by China while also countering Russia, as Britain updated its strategic defence and foreign policy.
In a refresh of the Integrated Review, the United Kingdom government identified “the threat posed by Moscow to European security” as the most pressing short and medium-term priority.
But the 63-page long report, compiled after months of work across government — also labeled China a “systemic challenge with implications for almost every sphere of government policy.”
“We cannot be blind to the aggressive military and economic behavior of the Chinese Communist Party,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said as he unveiled the updated review to parliament.
Britain’s top diplomat added that Beijing was “stoking tensions” with Taiwan – the self-governing island China considers its territory- and trying to “strong-arm” other countries.
The review concluded that responding to the twin threats posed by Beijing and Moscow requires stepped-up defence and national security spending, both now and in the future.
It includes plans to spend an extra $6 billion (£5 billion) on defence over the next two years, focused on replenishing depleted ammunition stocks and nuclear resilience.
UK to dedicate 2.5 percent of annual GDP spending to defence
It also restated the ambition to dedicate 2.5 percent of annual GDP spending to defence, up on the UK’s current 2.2 percent spending in the policy area.
The UK last updated its strategic policy portfolio two years back in what was billed as the most comprehensive policy overhaul since the Cold War era and in accordance with a recalibration of its post-Brexit worldview.
Although it branded Russia the “most acute direct threat to the UK,” the report then also announced a much-heralded pivot in focus towards Asia to counter China’s growing threat.
Despite the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government assessed that those fundamentals had not changed but that their response needed to “evolve.”
“China poses an epoch-defining challenge to the type of international order we want to see, both in terms of security and values — and so our approach must evolve,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote in the review’s foreword.
He added Britain would work with Beijing on shared priorities such as combating climate change but pledged to “push back” alongside allies against its attempts to “coerce or create dependencies.”
“And we are taking new action to protect ourselves, our democracy, and our economy at home,” Sunak noted.
That will see several existing agencies revamped, including creating a new £1 billion “integrated security fund” and a National Protective Security Authority to improve the resilience of critical infrastructure.
Ministers will also double funding on skills and knowledge in China for government staff, including Mandarin language skills.
The BBC World Service will get a £20 million funding boost to protect its dozens of language services over the next two years, “support English language broadcasting and counter disinformation.”
