Reader TTS

It has been said before that history moves like tectonic plates. If so, they are shifting like never before. The West has largely been defined by its conflicts; over the last 100 years

fascism, communism, religious terrorism have been the main scourges of liberal democracy, the Second World War mainly doing away with the first, the Cold War the second, and the third dealt

but a flesh wound by America’s War on Terror this century. An easy analysis puts them in order – 1945, 1989, 2001. The first two can be seen as a success, the third much less so, even though

most see the chances of a jihadist takeover in the grand halls of Europe as comparatively slim.  What fewer seem to have grasped, perhaps because of its unfriendly reality, is the nature of

the next foe and the necessity of the West’s attention to its ambitions. The retreat from Afghanistan, the abandonment of the Middle East to its former turmoil, and the gradual, unspoken

decline of Russian power and America’s unwillingness to fight what is left of it, points everything East.  China has, in the words of the Western commentator, been “rising” for quite some

time. Largely this stems from Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms (despite political stagnation) in the 1980s, creating the strange blend of widespread consumer capitalism with autocratic

social control.  This gawping at a new-found powerhouse is in no way surprising; the perennial cultural gulf between the West and East is responsible for every prejudice and stereotype about

China. When Richard Nixon made his notorious visit in 1972, he was going to a land most of his citizens really were clueless about. Then it was a failing Communist dictatorship, now it is a

successful, pseudo-Communist dictatorship. That success, which is remarkable, has also brought international power with it. A power much of the West still wants to ignore.  Jens

Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of Nato since 2014, may well be the only Western statesman alert to his times, or one brave enough to show it. In an interview for the _Financial Times_ this

week, he confirms Nato’s broad move away from Russia towards China. Echoing Joe Biden’s perceived gibe about Xi Jinping’s increasing aggression, Stoltenberg’s moves are a “determined shift

away from Europe to a hegemonic conflict with Beijing” — away from the disparate battles closer to home in favour of concentrating on the largest enemy farthest away. By the time he steps

down next year, Stoltenberg promises to have refocused the Alliance towards the military and cyber threats China poses to its neighbours and the West. “China is coming closer to us,” he

says, whether “in the Arctic …in cyberspace” or their “many, many silos for inter-continental ballistic missiles.” In response, he claims the West has agreed “a common language” to rebut the

ever-more bullish tones of Beijing.  Declaring a tough stand against China is obviously quite different from doing anything useful about it. Beijing’s recent rehearsals for invasion around

Taiwan and Western complacency in response make the words Czechoslovakia and Munich come ominously to mind. Stoltenberg may recognise that Xi has a habit of “bullying countries which are not

behaving as they want” but lays out little for how Europe and America may actively be involved in deterring them.  Outrage at the persecution of the Uighurs merely belies the diplomatic

weakness of the West in being unable to do anything whatever to stop it. For all that Western attitudes towards the Chinese regime have hardened over the last few years, it was but half a

decade ago that we were still in the midst of George Osborne’s proclaimed “golden age” of Sino-British relations, despite the ample list of human rights abuses the economics ignored. The

refusal to go anywhere near recognising Taiwan makes any help when the tanks get involved particularly unlikely. Hong Kong is a lost cause many of us simply want to forget. Another “quarrel

in a far away country”, as Neville Chamberlain put it.  Stoltenberg raises the West’s greatest quandary as well, one all the evidence shows Joe Biden is in no way equipped to handle: how to

manage China’s threat while also getting anywhere close to resolving the climate disaster. Co-operation with a potentially genocidal and essentially repressive regime in solving a global

crisis is a problem that will make the moralist squeal and the cynic grin. It is the job of the politician to decide how to solve it.  Boris Johnson’s actions at Cop26 this month will go

some way to show whether this country still has any of the realism needed to reverse the trend of British isolationism and decline. Beyond the rhetoric about growing trees and the eerie

silence about fossil fuel industries, Johnson’s greatest task is persuading others to stick to the targets of the most ambitious, of whom the UK is one.  China of course plays the greatest

role; it contributes so much to the problem and has among the most to lose from climate change’s harshest effects. But the Prime Minister is also presiding over an increasingly antagonistic

party and country, one which sees working with the Chinese government as collaboration with an abusive tyranny. Right-wing Sinophobia and “woke” silence over China will soon have to be

replaced by a serious debate, not another culture battle.  The spread of coronavirus has its share in this attitude, as well as any ignorance about China in the national conversation.  Yet

Stoltenberg was eager to raise the nature of internal attacks from the Communist Party itself; not for nothing does Cambridge University let people like Professor Stephen Toope rise to the

top. The irony of an academic ostensibly interested in human rights and social justice taking large sums to speak in support of a state involved in the violent persecution of several ethnic

groups has not been lost on writers of Left (such as the _Observer_’s Catherine Bennett) and Right, not without reason. Most instances are less egregious. What, though, of the broader

willingness among politicians and the media to “engage” with China? Britain is, perhaps, a fading power and America is destined to follow suit if the reign of President Biden continues for

much longer. Jens Stoltenberg’s time at the top of the Alliance which binds the two nations together has seen the failure to secure supremacy against Islamist extremism and the continued

pernicious actions of Russia around its borders. None of those problems will go away. But China, along with the climate dangers it affects so profoundly, will be the greatest problem for the

rest of this century: the least Boris Johnson could do is to publicly recognise it. Then he might accrue some much-needed credit around the world stage by stepping from the wings and making

sure someone other than Xi Jinping takes the limelight.