The arguments for Brexit were always applicable in spades to the United Kingdom's relationship with the United States, so we always knew that there would be some revival of the profound Tory ambivalence, until the First World War and often until the Second an outright hostility, towards the American Republic, which was not our ally but our rival in our own Imperial heyday, and which was founded in treason against the Crown.
We had not, however, expected that revival to happen so soon (Brexit has still not happened), or to be so ferocious, or to be the work of a New York-born Prime Minister who was a friend of Donald Trump's. And yet, here we are. Julian Assange has been moved out of solitary confinement, while the other words fairly trip off the tongue: Iran, Anne Sacoolas, taxing the tech giants, and now also Huawei.
Jeremy Corbyn could not have been much more "Neither Brussels Nor Washington" than Boris Johnson is. An American citizen for the first 52 years of his life, Johnson now has the air of Chips Channon or the Astors, a zealous defector from the East Coast haute bourgeoisie to the English country house set.
For sale to anyone who wants to buy it, Israeli spyware is all over WhatsApp. But you are worried about Huawei? Seriously? Forget the hysteria about Huawei. Silicon Valley's pillars of the American liberal Deep State are already spying on us all the time, as we now know that so are so are their close Israeli associates at NSO, who are likewise hand in glove with the House of Saud for whom Hillary Clinton openly promised to nuke Iran as long ago as 2008.
We had not, however, expected that revival to happen so soon (Brexit has still not happened), or to be so ferocious, or to be the work of a New York-born Prime Minister who was a friend of Donald Trump's. And yet, here we are. Julian Assange has been moved out of solitary confinement, while the other words fairly trip off the tongue: Iran, Anne Sacoolas, taxing the tech giants, and now also Huawei.
Jeremy Corbyn could not have been much more "Neither Brussels Nor Washington" than Boris Johnson is. An American citizen for the first 52 years of his life, Johnson now has the air of Chips Channon or the Astors, a zealous defector from the East Coast haute bourgeoisie to the English country house set.
For sale to anyone who wants to buy it, Israeli spyware is all over WhatsApp. But you are worried about Huawei? Seriously? Forget the hysteria about Huawei. Silicon Valley's pillars of the American liberal Deep State are already spying on us all the time, as we now know that so are so are their close Israeli associates at NSO, who are likewise hand in glove with the House of Saud for whom Hillary Clinton openly promised to nuke Iran as long ago as 2008.
The regime in China is bad, but it does not drag us into its wars. Look at the situation in relation to Iran. Look at the very need, real or perceived, for amnesties in relation to Afghanistan and Iraq. Hasn't the EU done a grand job of keeping this country at peace? And not only this country, either.
Of course we have brought the Huawei situation on ourselves by deindustrialisation, deregulation and privatisation. That is also why we are caught up in the trade war between China and the United States, since they still have the wit to make real things. Services are all well and good, but you cannot service nothing. The stuff itself has to come from somewhere.
Nevertheless, while I do not like the regime in China, it is not allied to anyone who wishes us harm, and it is to some extent a bulwark against those who do. Moreover, its companies do not sell their products to what is obviously meant but never named in this story, Saudi Arabia. That is not only one of the two most evil regimes in the world, but, unlike North Korea, is also the nerve centre of all sorts of all other wicked things.
We see how perturbed the Five Eyes Security State is at the Yellow Peril. Empire Loyalists and white supremacists of the old school, they are unable to process the information that technological progress is doing anything other than manifest the self-evident superiority of "the first race in the world". They are hoist on at least two of their own petards. Jared Taylor has had to concede for years that, using his own ridiculous terms of reference, East Asians were a "superior race" to whites. And then there is good old capitalism. Huawei's products are simply better, and they manage to be so while also being much more reasonably priced. That is due to State action.
Well, of course it is. Practically all of Apple's technology, like that of all of the Silicon Valley giants, was originally developed by the federal government, for the federal government. The only big tech that is not spying on you is Chinese, because you probably do not own any. But you soon will. And it was Tony Benn who founded the National Enterprise Board, which invested in Acorn Computing, which helped to develop the ARM Processors that are found in all iPhones. So all iPhones are Bennite.
What might Huawei be seeking to do in Britain, anyway? Rig the result of The X Factor? There is no Fu Manchu itching to read everybody's Snapchat messages about Love Island, and there is nothing else to read in Britain these days.
We do not mind the Chinese State directly running our rail services or building our nuclear power stations, yet we balk at Huawei. Or at least Colonel Blimp and his transatlantic penfriend, Colonel Sanders, do. How perfectly ridiculous. And how very conservative and patriotic they have turned out to have been, privatisation and deregulation, Thatcherism and neoliberalism.
This is how the once-mighty but now decayed princely states of Asia and elsewhere must have felt as the British Empire approached. But approach it did. Like them, we can either get on the bus, or we can expect to be thrown under it. Who knows, subject to certain conditions, the Chinese and other rising powers of Eurasia, Asia, Latin America and Africa might even help us to take back control of our key infrastructure?
Whatever undertakings we may have given to Hong Kong in the olden days, the fact is that China is now rich and growing richer, strong and growing stronger, while Britain is now poor and growing poorer, weak and growing weaker. The case either for Huawei or for the Belt and Road Initiative is not that the regime in China is nice, but that anyone who is not at the table is on the menu.
Of course we have brought the Huawei situation on ourselves by deindustrialisation, deregulation and privatisation. That is also why we are caught up in the trade war between China and the United States, since they still have the wit to make real things. Services are all well and good, but you cannot service nothing. The stuff itself has to come from somewhere.
Nevertheless, while I do not like the regime in China, it is not allied to anyone who wishes us harm, and it is to some extent a bulwark against those who do. Moreover, its companies do not sell their products to what is obviously meant but never named in this story, Saudi Arabia. That is not only one of the two most evil regimes in the world, but, unlike North Korea, is also the nerve centre of all sorts of all other wicked things.
We see how perturbed the Five Eyes Security State is at the Yellow Peril. Empire Loyalists and white supremacists of the old school, they are unable to process the information that technological progress is doing anything other than manifest the self-evident superiority of "the first race in the world". They are hoist on at least two of their own petards. Jared Taylor has had to concede for years that, using his own ridiculous terms of reference, East Asians were a "superior race" to whites. And then there is good old capitalism. Huawei's products are simply better, and they manage to be so while also being much more reasonably priced. That is due to State action.
Well, of course it is. Practically all of Apple's technology, like that of all of the Silicon Valley giants, was originally developed by the federal government, for the federal government. The only big tech that is not spying on you is Chinese, because you probably do not own any. But you soon will. And it was Tony Benn who founded the National Enterprise Board, which invested in Acorn Computing, which helped to develop the ARM Processors that are found in all iPhones. So all iPhones are Bennite.
What might Huawei be seeking to do in Britain, anyway? Rig the result of The X Factor? There is no Fu Manchu itching to read everybody's Snapchat messages about Love Island, and there is nothing else to read in Britain these days.
We do not mind the Chinese State directly running our rail services or building our nuclear power stations, yet we balk at Huawei. Or at least Colonel Blimp and his transatlantic penfriend, Colonel Sanders, do. How perfectly ridiculous. And how very conservative and patriotic they have turned out to have been, privatisation and deregulation, Thatcherism and neoliberalism.
This is how the once-mighty but now decayed princely states of Asia and elsewhere must have felt as the British Empire approached. But approach it did. Like them, we can either get on the bus, or we can expect to be thrown under it. Who knows, subject to certain conditions, the Chinese and other rising powers of Eurasia, Asia, Latin America and Africa might even help us to take back control of our key infrastructure?
Whatever undertakings we may have given to Hong Kong in the olden days, the fact is that China is now rich and growing richer, strong and growing stronger, while Britain is now poor and growing poorer, weak and growing weaker. The case either for Huawei or for the Belt and Road Initiative is not that the regime in China is nice, but that anyone who is not at the table is on the menu.
Nor was the advancing British Empire nice, when it had to be given Hong Kong for 99 years. But notice that by the time that the lease on Hong Kong came up, then the British Empire had long ago ceased to exist. We shall all be dead before the eclipse of China. But that eclipse will happen, as surely as that of Britain did.
China, of course, continues to industrialise, following the same road to wealth that we once trod. Our own decline will only be exacerbated if we insist on moving to zero carbon emissions, a move that would be negated countless times over by China, by India, and by all the rest of them, present and imminent. If we have only 12 years left, then it is far too late to do anything, anyway. 12 years is a long time if it is three quarters of your own life to date. But we are not governed by people in that position. Or at any rate, we never used to be. Increasingly it feels as if we are.
By spreading hysteria about Huawei, all that the likes of MI6 and GCHQ are saying is that, even in they own terms, they themselves are just not very good. Does that really never occur to him? Pointedly, MI5 is allowing it to be known that it is taking a different approach. But as Ren Zhengfei recently pointed out, Huawei is simply too advanced for the world to do without it. This is the world now. Similarly, in order to bring about a solution in Kashmir, then the world needs China, which is closely allied to Pakistan, and the world needs Russia, which retains an alliance with India going back to the Soviet period.
As for trade with India, the more of it, the better. This is not about Imperial nostalgia, of which of course the Indians themselves have none. The people who ran the Congress Party in the olden days had more than might have been expected, but not as much as we liked to imagine. And the people who run the BJP today have none whatever. But so what? The business of business is business.
Just as good relations with Pakistan are important for relations with China, and vice versa, so good relations with India are good for relations with Russia, and vice versa. All would be essential to any solution in Kashmir. If there were to be an Indian Huawei, then we ought to consider its products on their merits. Of course, it would be better if there were a British Huawei, but here we are.
It is not anti-Indian to support British participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative. If there were to be an Indian Belt and Road Initiative, then we ought to be on that, too. Be at the table, or be on the menu. Be on the bus, or be thrown under it. And be clear that the abuse of Dalits, Christians, Muslims and others by the governing party's members and supporters in India is as bad as the abuse of anyone in China, and vice versa.
This is the world now, the world of the BRICS, the world of Huawei, and the world of the Belt and Road Initiative. Be at the table, or be on the menu. Be on the bus, or be thrown under it. I will be standing for Parliament again here at North West Durham next time, so please give generously. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
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