How the UK's Military Partnerships Abroad Are Threatened by Chinese Influence

A new paper by the Adarga Research Institute and the Tony Blair Institute

Hello and welcome back to What China Wants.

Today’s post is an exciting one for me, as I announce some research that we have been working on for quite some time, in collaboration with the Tony Blair Institute.

Titled "UK Military Partnerships Around the World at Risk", we show how Chinese influence is potentially interrupting Britain’s relationships with countries important for its military reach. This is a major issue for London, as its global defence posture relies on a select number of international partners, who assist with everything from training and operational bases to providing berths for warships.

Source: Tony Blair Institute

The problem arises because there has been a longstanding tradition of viewing the UK’s relationship with its military partners almost exclusively through a military lens. If you ask the British military attaché in, say, Brunei, what the relationship is between the Sultan’s armed forced and the UK armed forces there, then he will tell you (correctly) that it is close.

However, the military relationship is only part of the story. Political, economic, and technological stability and growth are all important too. Indeed, these factors are generally far more important for the governments of these countries than purely military considerations when choosing political alignments.

This is why I have spent a long time developing models of international influence, using quantitative and qualitative data to reveal the true ability for Country A to influence Country B across the whole political, economic, technological, and military spectrum. This report uses a “light” version of this model (powered by Adarga’s AI tech stack) to look at three countries important to Britain’s military stance:

• Brunei (the main British base in Southeast Asia);

• Kenya (the main British base in Africa); and

• Oman (a key logistics and training base, and one of the UK’s main allies in the Middle East).

Main Findings

Our findings don’t provide much cheer for the UK. We show how China has massively increased its political, economic, and technological influence over many of the UK’s military partners. This in turn means that many of the UK’s defence relationships are under threat, because China now has levers of influence that governments care about, such as who builds and operates their digital infrastructure.

The relationship most at risk of compromise is Brunei. In almost every area China trumps the UK for influence in the Sultanate. London’s overall relationship is precarious and seems to rely more on the will of the current Sultan, who is nearly 80. Losing Brunei to China would cause massive upset in Washington given its location in the First Island Chain and the defence of Taiwan.

There is better news for the relationship with Kenya, which we suggest has only a moderate risk of being compromised. The UK has useful political and economic influence in Kenya which helps to cement the miliary relationship. But China’s influence is rising, as is the US’s, and so more work is needed to build the UK’s overall position in the country.

We do though end with some good news. We show how there is only a light risk to the relationship with Oman. The UK is still more widely influential there than China or the US, although it must be said that China is making efforts to increase its position there.

Summary of Recommendations

The report also contains a number of recommendations for how London can improve its relations with its critical defence partners around the world. Most importantly, we urge the Government to undertake a systematic, multi-dimensional audit of the UK’s alliances (perhaps within the context of the ongoing Strategic Defence Review).. Such a review would provide the basis for level recommendations on which alliances the UK needs, and the levers to deepen these.

Overall, the British Government must consider creating a broader relationship with countries when choosing its military allies and partners, and not just focusing on the military aspects.

Why This Report Matters

This is not just an observation about the UK’s international defence relationships struggling under the rise of Chinese influence. All over the world, the relations between European and North American countries and those in Asia and Africa are under strain as China makes new friends at the expense of old ones. Russia has also strengthened ties with many governments over the past decade, ties that don’t seem unduly strained by their invasion of Ukraine.

There are many reasons for this shift in alignments, including dislike of what is perceived a Western hypocrisy over issues like Gaza and Ukraine. But a significant factor is simply to do with investment. Countries, especially in the Global South, like what China can bring to the table, especially around development of physical and digital infrastructure, plus trade opportunities.

This is what we call “techno-economic” influence, and it is something that China excels in. This is certainly a major factor in why Brunei is now leaning more towards China - the new oil refinery it built there is worth more than all previous investment into the country put together. This naturally gives China significant influence over the country.

I will be expanding on these points in research papers to come, but in the meantime here is a link to the full report: https://info.adarga.ai/adarga-tbi-report

The Tony Blair Institute have written a blog post to accompany the launch, “Towards Holistic Power: Reinvigorating the UK’s Strategic Assets”.

Finally, I would like to thank my co-writers on this: Melanie Garson and Dan Sleat from the Tony Blair Institute, and William Matthews, once of the Adarga Research Institute, now at Chatham House. It was very good working with them on this.

Please DM me if you have any thoughts on the paper, or leave a comment. In the meantime I’ll be back next week with even more research.

Thanks for reading.
Sam