Official Development Assistance and the British Council — House of Commons, 2021-06-30
Topic: International Affairs
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): My biggest criticism about that is what is done in practice to the Department and the important voice at the Cabinet table and at the National Security Council. Now we have only the Foreign Secretary there, not another voice, and that is what we have lost We absolutely need to expand our Whitehall bandwidth to be able to recognise the current challenges to which we could provide solutions and also the looming ones that are coming over the horizon. This is the point I hope the Minister will listen to. The real backdrop to this debate that we must all recognise is where our complex and dangerous world is heading. If there was one welcome outcome of the G7 summit, it is the realisation that unless the west becomes less risk-averse, regroups and reunites, the next decade will get very bumpy indeed I have been consistent in my clear message to this House: over the next five years, the world is getting more dangerous, not less, and more complex, not less. Authoritarianism is on the rise, new power bases are emerging, and states are starting to rearm at an alarming rate. To compound matters, we now have the growing challenge of climate change, which is already having an impact on security and governance in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions. Storms, floods and droughts will affect agricultural productivity, damage economies and lead to mass migration, most notably from Africa to Europe. This goes back to the point about where the challenge is: it is not in Dover; it is actually in Africa. Simply put, global security in our ever complex and confusing world is on a worrying glide path, and right now there is no grand plan to alter the current trajectory. The threat picture is greater and more complex than during the cold war, and it requires addressing The political scientist Joe Nye introduced the term "soft power" a decade ago. It is the ability to influence the behaviour of others to get the outcomes we want by attracting and co-opting their support. However, in the spirit of Sun Tzu, who said: "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting", I argue here today that a new global soft power war or soft war is already at play, but we in the west have yet to wake up to its reality China is weaponising its immense soft power to significantly advance its influence and reach, and to promote its own interpretation of the international rules-based order. We are seeing this gathering apace across Africa and Asia through its one belt, one road infrastructure programmes and its gifting of 5G networks and military support to ensnare dozens and dozens of countries into its sphere of influence. It is also securing senior leadership positions in international organisations such as the United Nations to neutralise any criticism of its errant behaviour, and is now contributing ever more significant Chinese military forces to UN peacekeeping missions. As we have heard today, it is using its Confucius centres—now over 600 across the globe—to advance its message This will be China’s century, as it eventually overshadows and overtakes America as the dominant military, economic and technological superpower, yet here we are in Britain still failing to put two and two together. For a nation that usually prides itself on its place and influence in the world and its grasp of global situational awareness, I am genuinely baffled to understand why it is not reading and responding to this bigger picture. China is offering a competing authoritarian ideology and is leveraging its colossal economic growth to undercut western competition. On this current glide path, the world will splinter into two spheres of competing influence. Now is not the time to cut our defence budgets or our aid budgets as these threats increase, yet here we are doing both. There is a phenomenal opportunity for British leadership here, made all the easier with the new US Administration, to craft a post-Brexit international role at the very moment the west is required to regroup. I urge this Government to listen to the voices here today in this Parliament and see the bigger picture, recognise the scale of the threat we face, invest in the statecraft and the hard and soft power tools we need, and expand Whitehall’s international bandwidth, for the actions we the west choose to take over the next few years could have implications for how the next few decades play out.