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Most people in Britain see China’s rise as a top threat to security in next decade, survey finds

  • China is also the second least trusted nation after Russia among Britons, according to annual poll by British think tank
  • Just 22 per cent of respondents said they supported London pursuing economic ties with Beijing, while only 8 per cent backed tilt to Indo-Pacific

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An increasing number of Britons see China’s rise as a “critical threat”, according to the survey. Photo: Xinhua
Matt Ho
China is second to Russia on the list of nations that Britons least trust to act responsibly in global affairs, and more now see its rise as a “critical threat”, according to a new survey by a British think tank.
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Just 22 per cent of respondents supported London to pursue economic relations with Beijing, and approval was even lower, at 13 per cent, for Chinese involvement in building infrastructure in Britain like energy and telecoms projects.

Meanwhile, support for the British government’s tilt towards the Indo-Pacific was lukewarm at best, with most respondents, or 37 per cent, saying they were undecided and only 8 per cent agreeing the region should be at the centre of British foreign policy.

The annual survey by the British Foreign Policy Group was conducted on January 6 and 7, with 2,002 respondents, and comes as London is recalibrating its relations with Beijing and reorientating its overall foreign policy to a “Global Britain” in the post-Brexit era.
Relations between Britain and China have been strained in the past two years over Hong Kong, London’s decision to ban Huawei Technologies from the country’s 5G network, and Beijing’s treatment of the Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang. Last week China took the BBC off the air, days after its state broadcaster CGTN had its licence revoked in Britain.

“Obviously, we have this very electric political conversation about China, particularly in the past 18 months, with the Huawei decision, and of course the origin of coronavirus pandemic … and the British people have been watching all of these, and they are concerned,” Sophia Gaston, the think tank’s director and lead author of the report, told British radio station LBC on Wednesday.

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