Brexit leaves UK caught between Washington and Beijing

From late on Friday night the United Kingdom will be legally outside the European Union, although not much will change during a transition period that is due to last until the end of the year.

After that it is still not entirely clear whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson will use his solid parliamentary majority to turn the country into Global Britain, Little England or a free-wheeling, market-friendly Singapore-on-Thames.

Brexit is now a certainty but the aspirations of the slim majority that voted in 2016 to quit the EU are still as varied, and even contradictory, as ever.

So far, the signals are that a confident, newly elected Conservative Party will seek to loosen the trade arrangements that link it closely to Europe in order to strike out for trade deals with the rest of the world.

However, such a strategy might run up against the reality that Europe is still by far the UK's most important trading partner and the reality that other trading nations will not necessarily be lining up to sign deals on the UK's terms.

Whatever course the government takes, future links with the United States, the single country with which the UK earns most from trade, and China, its second-most important non-European trade partner, will be crucial.

The US would appear to be an easy target for a trade deal with a traditionally Atlanticist Conservative Party and its New York-born leader, Johnson.

In the short time since his December election triumph, however, a number of issues have arisen to sour relations between London and Donald Trump's Washington.

They range from a seemingly minor diplomatic spat over an US woman who fled the UK last year after being involved in a fatal road crash, to the future of the international deal on Iran's nuclear program.

A transatlantic war of words has also been sparked by the UK's intention to impose a 2 percent "tech tax" on US online giants such as Google and Facebook.

Steven Mnuchin, the US treasury secretary, said: "If people want to just arbitrarily put taxes on our digital companies we will consider arbitrarily putting taxes on car companies," a pointed reference to the UK's biggest physical export sector.

Equally contentious is the issue of the UK's future relationship with China's Huawei as the country develops its 5G internet connectivity.

This week, Johnson's government announced that the Chinese company would indeed be offered a limited role in building 5G infrastructure, although there would be a cap on its UK market share.

That policy represents a snub to Washington which has been lobbying its allies to reject Huawei on security grounds. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has echoed the views of some UK domestic critics that a deal with Huawei would challenge UK sovereignty over control of its data.

Huawei and British officials have worked closely to meet outstanding UK concerns and security chiefs have taken a relatively relaxed attitude to a tie-up with Huawei. Some suspect US resistance to Huawei is as much about commerce as security.

A transatlantic split over Huawei risks undermining the Five Eyes arrangement under which the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have traditionally shared intelligence. It also casts a shadow over a wider, post-Brexit trade deal with the US.

A comprehensive deal with Trump's "America First" administration was in any event never going to be an easy ride, even for a country such as Britain which is seen — or at least that sees itself — as the US's closest ally.

UK negotiators may have to bear in mind the public's resistance to bowing to US pressure to relax protections in areas such as food safety. Brexit Britain includes its own "Britain First" constituency that appears to think the UK can make its own rules in international trade. They may be encouraged by Johnson's current stance of standing up to perceived US bullying.

In the longer run, however, the UK probably needs the US more than the reverse and the same probably holds true for its relations with China.

Johnson might be hoping that a rational compromise over Huawei would eventually satisfy Washington while at the same time help build trust with the Chinese.

The imminence of Brexit after nearly four years of uncertainty has raised expectations of a UK-China trade deal. The UK currently exports fewer goods to China than it does to neighboring Ireland, a country of only five million people.

Chinese officials have made encouraging remarks about closer ties with the UK. China's Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming told a Chinese New Year gathering: "Our two countries should bring our comparative strengths together and deepen cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, infrastructure building, financial services, hi-tech and innovation."

Among outstanding questions are what the UK has to offer China. As an isolated offshore island, it may turn out to hold less attractions than it once did as a leading economy at the heart of Europe.

Harvey Morris is a senior media consultant for China Daily UK