Blain’s Morning Porridge, Nov 19th 2024: The UK is Piggy-in-the-Middle in the Game of Global Trade and Geopolitics
“This England, that was want to conquer others, hath made a shameful conquest of itself…”
The UK is in danger of becoming the unloved Piggy-in-the-Middle in terms of new global trade and geopolitical alliances. While China and the US place the pieces on the board, the value of Airstrip 1 is unclear. We have chosen where we now lie. We have chosen badly.
This Morning’s quote is from Shakespeare, Richard II’s immortal rouser. I urge you to read it. Britain is in danger of becoming Piggy in the Middle in the great game of global trade and geopolitics.
- Last week an American trade advisor, Stephen Moore, warned the UK that re-engagement with Socialist Europe would make any future trade agreement with the US less likely (for which read FROAD), and would be seen as an “unwise” rejection of Trumpian “Free-Trade” principles. (!)
- Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, has been rounded on by both remaining Brexit supporters for daring to speak that which must not be said: “Brexit was a really stupid mistake”. (Actually, there are plenty of Europeans looking at France and Germany, wondering if we might just have been prescient about stresses yet to come in Europe.)
- Yesterday UK Premier Keir Starmer met with Emperor Xi of China at the Brazil G20 summit – the first top level Sino-UK meeting in 7 years. As Sir Keir raised issues over the treatment of imprisoned demonstrators in Hong Kong, Chinese officials bowled all the journalists out the room. In case Starmer missed it, to emphasise the point, China announced long sentences for 45 Hong Kong protestors this morning. Media mogul Jimmy Lai, whose Apple News so upset the CCP, will be sentenced tomorrow. It is unlikely to go easy for him.
- Starmer and business secretary Jonathan Reynolds are now hoping to close a long-delayed trade deal with India. (Hope is never a sound strategy.) India may be the fifth largest economy and “a vital trading partner for the UK”, said Reynolds, but Delhi’s main interest is securing preferential visa access – India is by far the largest source of legal migration to the UK. There is little “momentum” behind any deal from the Indian side – the UK dramatically underperforms other European nations in India. France is India’s main business and defence partner in Europe.
- While Xi snubbed Starmer, other European capitals are quietly receiving Chinese outreach on how future geopolitical alignment could work to their benefit. If the USA introduces widespread tariffs, and reduces support to NATO, then Europe should be assured of its importance as the receiving end of the new Silk Roads and the emerging Asian Co-Prosperity sphere, under Chinese leadership.. of course.
- As if to drive home the point, Europe is being pointedly reminded of its vulnerabilities. Critical sub-sea Fibre-optic links from Europe to Finland (C-Lion1), and the Baltic States from Sweden were mysteriously cut over the weekend. (Oh? Guess who?) A Russian “undersea” “research vessel” has been stooging around the Irish Sea this week, hovering right over cables from Ireland to the UK – which link to the vital trans-Atlantic cables.
- For the duration of the Ukraine War, Russia has been sustained by Iran missiles and Drones, and by North Korean artillery ammunition. North Korean troops are massing to repulse Ukraine from the Kursk Oblast.
- While the Russians are furious Biden is going to let Ukraine punch back (in a limited form with the new missiles that won’t go anywhere near Moscow), there is lots of fearful talk about escalation. It is misplaced – although there are folk in Washington who think Iran, North Korean and Russia operate without explicit Chinese approval, and reckon the Russians are “good people, just like us”, Xi is unlikely to allow escalation unless it would clearly boost China’s influence and stature.
For all the noise about China’s apparent economic weakness, the Geopolitical map has changed dramatically over the last 8 years in China’s favour.
The most obvious change is China’s de-facto control and command over Iran, North Korea, Russia axis. Equally important has been its diplomacy with former US aligned states in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and increasingly South America.
The recent BRICS summit in Russia got little focus in the Western Press, but the message was simple: the USA is decadent and in terminal decline, the future will be about “solidarity and cooperation between emerging-market and developing countries” to promote “equal and orderly global multipolarity”… under China, of course. What matters is not that Saudi, the Middle East and other nations are still not fully aligned with China, but that they are no longer fully aligned with the USA!
China, perhaps, realises its growing demographic issues and its now lethargic economy, means the costs of achieving military and economic hegemon status on its own will be overly high. Much better would be to win that status through trade and isolating perceived enemies. It needs the strong supporting cast of now non-aligned nations drawn to it by their own perceived economic gains.
Where will that leave Britain? China has a long memory. While Sir Keir Starmer can lecture Xi on human rights, the Century of Humiliation through opium wars, the looting of Beijing, and Hong Kong will not be lightly forgotten.
On both sides of the growing geopolitical divide between the USA and China, Europe is seen to be in decline, a creaking socialist edifice where nations like France and Italy are riven by debt, run-down infrastructure, beset by multiple issues, and destabilised by immigration (often driven by Russia pushing refugees across borders) and ripe for some form of revolution, which could well be realignment from the Trans-Atlantic economy, to the new Belt-And-Road economy. Europe, however, remains wealthy and developed. It’s a prize China, if not America, sees value in. It’s a massive market and one with tremendous people wealth in terms of a highly educated workforce.
Despite Europe’s destructive 30 years of Civil war – 1914-1945, (warfare interspersed with domestic upheaval from unemployment, depression, and social unrest) – the American Century and Alliance proved transformational. Although the European economy thrived, it failed to match the wealth driven freedoms and growth momentum of America.
While the UK regarded itself as a senior partner in the post-war transatlantic partnership, that is clearly no longer the case. We have to honestly acknowledge that. Although the UK has produced a staggering number of Nobel laureates, and our universities produce skilled inventors and innovators, the economy has been sluggish for decades.
We are consumed by our imaginings about the UK’s ongoing place in the World, and our unquantifiable soft-power. The reality is UK real incomes are a fraction of those in the US. The economy has been stifled by decades of poor-planning and directive-led incompetence at the heart of government. If only we had an Elon Musk to wield a chopper through the bloated civil service and Whitehall….
Where does that leave the UK? Facing the reality we are a small island off the increasingly unfashionable North-West corner of Europe… We can either lament fading glories, or we can reinvent ourselves. We can’t wait for our future and destiny to be determined in Beijing or Washington..
Here endeth this morning’s rant.. and I would be rushing to the station to catch the 7.38 to London… if there were any trains running… but apparently the wrong kind of cold, wet and rain has broken the points…. FFS!
Out of time and back to the day job..
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge, founder of Wind Shift Capital
2 Comments
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A very good piece Bill!
I’ll try to ignore the needless Russophobic elements (yes, it’s good to read the Torygraph to know what the enemy is thinking, but clearly quite a lot is trickling into your mind by osmosis?)
More pertinently, you are 100% correct.
Britain has cosplayed as the power behind the US throne since 1945. (Un?)fortunately the world has finally noticed that we aren’t wearing any clothes. We no longer make anything (see Thatcher, not civil servants for that!) and beyond what we stole from the colonies we own nothing and only have two aircraft carriers with no planes that work to threaten people with.
We fomented the war in Ukraine (and continue to do so) but (un)fortunately Trump might put a stop to that little game.
Perhaps the rest of the world will also say “good riddance to bad rubbish” once they have seen the US and China do the same?
I for one would welcome that since as you suggest it would give us a chance to reinvent ourselves, only this time not as a bloodthirsty, war-mongering rapacious beast but as somethign much more akin to our actual status in the world. Maybe Denmark?
Then perhaps we can aspire to actually being less ashamed of being British?
Good rant and spot on. Imperial pay back is nailed on. The likes of China and India, and the rest of the world for that matter, have long memories. No one is going to be queuing up to do us any favours.