Wasn't a key plank of Brexiteer bullishness that we'd just do a deal with China ?
www.wsj.com/articles/britain-falls-out-of-love-with-china-11585955421
Britain Falls Out of Love With China Enthusiasm for post-Brexit trade wanes as the viral toll grows.
By The Editorial Board, 4/3/20, Wall St. Journal
What a difference two months make. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in late January riled many Britons and Washington by allowing Chinese telecom firm Huawei to supply parts for British communications networks. Nine weeks and one global pandemic later, that deal and many others are in doubt.
British anger at Beijing’s deceitful handling of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan has bubbled up in recent days. Senior minister Michael Gove on Sunday blamed Beijing for stymieing Britain’s response to the pandemic: “Some of the reporting from China was not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness of this.”
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Monday called for a “lessons learned” review in answer to a reporter’s question about Chinese obstructionism. These public statements reinforce press reports over the weekend that government officials privately suggest China should face a “reckoning” after the health emergency has abated.
Skeptical voices are rising outside the administration, too. Iain Duncan Smith, a member of Parliament and former Conservative Party leader, cited Beijing’s coronavirus cover-up as the final straw that should prompt Britain to “rethink” its relationship with China. That argument won’t be a hard sell to many Conservatives. Mr. Johnson faced a rebellion by 38 of his own party members in Parliament who recently voted against his plan to allow Huawei to sell equipment to Britain.
That deal was supposed to advance the warmer economic ties with China that were a central plank of Mr. Johnson’s post-Brexit trade agenda. Beijing’s dangerous virus cover-up could scupper those plans by forcing British leaders to question whether an authoritarian China is a trustworthy economic partner.
There’s a lesson for both sides. Britons who voted for Brexit backed a vision of their country as a democratic, free-trading beacon for the rest of the world. There are dangers to deviating from that path solely for the sake of commercial gain.
As for Beijing, the repression of the Xi Jinping era is not winning China respect abroad. Instead, that repression and its sour fruits—whether Uighur detention camps or a clumsy attempt to diminish or conceal the risks of what has become a global pandemic—are cultivating global distrust of the Communist Party. The price that the regime pays in lost respect and economic opportunities may be large and unpredictable.