USA (bbabo.net), - The government of Rishi Sunak will present a package of measures tightening restrictions on trade and investment with China, the American publication Politico reported today, April 18.
The measures go some way to fulfilling promises Sunak made to US President Joe Biden to curb British investment in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and facial recognition that could undermine Western national security.
The UK's open economy faces unprecedented threats from China, according to Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden. Dowden is expected to announce the package during a speech in London today and will say the UK must take a "real look" at threats to its economy amid the highest levels of geopolitical tension since the Cold War.
The UK must “carefully balance our freedoms, our prosperity and our security,” Dowden says.
Dowden is currently leading a department to improve controls over the export of new technologies to strategic competitors such as China, and is assembling a new team to analyze British government research into the risks of overseas investment.
The UK has around £13 trillion of external investment reserves, Dowden said. This brings the UK hundreds of billions of pounds in income, which is “extremely valuable” for us, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasizes. Instead of creating a new regime, the government hopes to use the National Security and Investment Act, introduced to control foreign direct investment in the UK, to limit the flow of money into the sensitive technologies of strategic rivals such as China.
British businessmen are calling on the government not to rush into introducing additional control measures over foreign investment.
“The UK has been quite successful in resisting obvious US pressure,” an unnamed senior British business official previously told Politico.
In September 2023, services sector lobby group TheCityUK publicly raised concerns that the US Presidential Executive Order would impact UK financial institutions. They also warned it could hit Americans working abroad for companies betting on China's cutting-edge technology sector.
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