multipolarity

Introduction

In January 2020, the UK had given a go-ahead to Chinese telecom giant Huawei to participate in its 5G network – with restrictions and conditions. The Trump administration conveyed its displeasure to the Boris Johnson administration. Not just the US President, but senior officials of the US administration are supposed to have said that this decision would impact economic and security relations between the UK and the US.

In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, ties between the UK and China have steadily deteriorated. As a result of increasing strains with Beijing, and the imposition of strong US sanctions against Huawei, London began to rethink its approach towards Huawei’s role in its 5G network.

First, it was decided that Huawei’s participation would be reduced to zero by 2023. In May, Britain had also proposed a multilateral grouping of 10 countries, D10 (G7+ India, South Korea and Australia), which could work collectively for reducing dependence upon Chinese technologies.

UK-China ties after the imposition of the National Security Law in Hong Kong

London further hardened its stance vis-à-vis China after the imposition of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, which, according to the UK, is a violation of the ‘one country two systems’ arrangement safeguarded by the ‘Basic law’ of Hong Kong and the Sino-British joint declaration signed in 1985. According to the Boris Johnson administration, the National Security Law will impinge upon not just the autonomy of Hong Kong but freedoms and rights of the residents of the former British colony, guaranteed by the 1985 declaration (these rights were to remain in place for a period of fifty years from 1997 – the year in which British left Hong Kong and handed over sovereignty to China).

Decision regarding Huawei

On July 14, 2020, on the recommendation of National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the Boris Johnson administration decided that Huawei will be removed from the 5G network by 2027. It was also decided that the purchase of 5G kits from Huawei will not be allowed after the end of December 2020.

China reacted strongly to the UK’s recent announcement, while it was welcomed by US President Donald Trump. China stated that the UK’s decision will exacerbate tensions, while the US President stated that the Johnson administration took this decision as a result of pressure from Washington. A top official in Boris Johnson’s administration stated that this decision was not driven by US pressure. Said the British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab:

But I think that decision was made not because the US said it was a good decision but because the leadership in the UK concluded the right thing to do was to make that decision for the people of the UK.

Interestingly, some media reports suggest that British officials have stated that the recent ban on Huawei was imposed with a view to placate Trump, and the UK could revise its decision, if the mercurial US President is voted out in November 2020.

UK-Japan relations

Britain has already begun to look for alternatives to Huawei for developing its 5G network. On July 16, 2020, just two days after the decision was taken to remove the Chinese telecom giant altogether by 2027, British officials are supposed to have met with their Japanese counterparts and sought assistance for developing Britain’s 5G network. Two companies which were discussed as possible alternatives to Huawei were NEC Corp and Fujitsu Limited.

It would be pertinent to point out that in recent months Britain has been aiming to strengthen trade ties with Japan, and is also looking to secure a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Japan. Both countries have also been at the forefront of pitching for diversifying global supply chains.

Conclusion

While it remains to be seen whether Britain and Japan can work together for developing the former’s 5G network, the London-Tokyo relationship has witnessed an upswing in the aftermath of Covid-19. Both countries have already begun to take steps for reducing economic reliance on China. It would be interesting to see if Britain sticks to its announcement of removing Huawei from its 5G network by 2027, in case Donald Trump loses in 2020. While Britain is seeking to strengthen ties with countries wary of China’s increasing economic dominance, the former would not likely to be perceived as a mere appendage of Washington.

The last few weeks were quite a blast for me: I’ve interned at the German embassy in Rome. A new job in a new city. I thought to process the experiences I made here in one (or a few?) articles.

It’s been quite a rough month for Germany’s Foreign Affairs department. First, Daniel Kriener, the German ambassador in Venezuela, was forced to leave the country after welcoming Interim President Guiadó at the airport of Caracas. Interestingly, although plenty of other diplomats joined him, he was the only one to be declared a “persona non grata” for interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs. A few weeks later, a deputy speaker of the German Bundestag (who is also a member of the liberal party) demands to expel the US ambassador Grenell for the same offence. Prior, the US diplomat has criticized Germany’s plan to break their promise of contributing more to NATO’s defence budget. Albeit I politically agree with both actions of the diplomats in these cases, they delineate the ongoing structural changes in the diplomacy sector. To illustrate this, I will first provide a theoretical framework to analyze ongoing diplomatic challenges before trying to examine the role of diplomacy in the future.

Principal-Agent Theory and decreasing relevance

I conceive diplomacy as mostly a principal-agent based problem. I believe that many problems in diplomatic negotiations can be traced back to the classic effects of asymmetric information. Since two principals, in this case two states, cannot negotiate with each other directly in most cases, these arbitrations are carried out between various agents. Those agents are of course not always the ambassadors. In a broad meaning, one can apply the principal-agent paradigm to diplomacy by every negotiating process initiated by the state.

Through the lens of the principal-agent paradigm, I perceive the main task of diplomacy to achieve a good negotiating position, for example through an informational advantage. However, due to globalization, state-to-state diplomacy has been drastically weakened. The negotiating game is now mostly carried out within other institutions with lower transactions costs. Two countries want a new trade deal? Just orientate on WTO Rules. Sue another country? Call the International Criminal Court. A few voices made reasonable arguments even for abolishing unnecessary embassies and only keeping the crucial ones. The Trump administration, for example, seems not eagerly committed to fill the around 18 vacant ambassador positions hastily.

Certainly, the globalization combined with the expansion of robust institutions leaves little space for traditional diplomacy as a driving force in interstate relations. This is not necessarily a bad development: As Paul W. Meerts points out, this can be a huge chance for weaker states since negotiating in multilateral rather than bilateral constellations tends to weaken the position of stronger states. Thus, playing out the trump cards in negotiations will be harder for the hegemon. We can currently witness this in the Brexit debate: Even though the strong states, Germany and France, have a vast repertoire of power resources to use as leverage against GB in the negotiations, the can hardly deploy them through EU’s multipolar negotiating structure.

Contrary, there are also recent examples of deploying bilateral traditional diplomacy measures successfully. China’s initiation of Italy’s accession to the Belt Road Initiative (see Tridivesh Singh Maini’s great article here for a quick overview) is a prime example for this. But no other case shows the weaknesses of bilateral diplomacy in a more drastic way: China was able to transpose their tremendous power resources into a deal which heavily favours the Chinese economy. The very ambiguous agreement laid down a strategy of “closer economic collaboration.” The oppositional criticism of the deal coming from the very left and the right is based on economic nationalism and thus misses the important point. Chinese government exerts immense influence on key enterprises like Tencent, Alibaba, and Badoo: Digital fundamental research topics such as AI were distributed to the firms not through competition but through the state ( I highly recommend Amy Webb’s EconTalk if you want to dig deeper into this.). Once they build sufficient digital infrastructure here in Europe, network effects and technological advantage will come into effect and engender high entry barriers and exit costs. This makes it easy for China to enforce its regulation rather than obeying European ones. Although it is hard to finally determine if multilateral negotiations would have secured a politically better deal, I favour higher short-term transaction cost of multilateral negotiations over the long-term threat showed above.

Embassies as service provider

Of course, taking care of a good interstate negotiation position is not the only task of an embassy. A popular counterargument is that the principal-agent perspective neglects the vital daily business of embassies to help their citizens abroad. Speaking of large and prestigious Embassies though, I estimate that their role as service provider for abroad living citizens will further decline. Most of their maintenance work for citizens living abroad will be redundant due to technological process and further institutionalization. Renewing a Passport, issuing visas and transporting back coffins (yep) are a frequent task, but easy to “source out” to private actors in the future.

But what is the role for ambassadors and embassies then?

This question is where it gets interesting in my opinion. Deeply rooted in international conventions and international customary law, discreet and silent work has been prerequisite for an ambassador. Carefully collecting small pieces of information and building bridges to local actors were the key for a good negotiating position. But as elaborated above, international institutions do the job more efficiently. A new role of ambassadors as advocates for concrete policy measures would be diametrically opposed to international conventions. Based upon the “legality creates legitimacy” premises, a further politicization of diplomacy seems not at present having a majority and thus is unlikely to be buttressed by legal means.

However, if we fall back into a narrative of nationalism, bilateral diplomacy will regain relevance. Otherwise, it will continue to slowly lose importance and eventually wane. Hence, the main challenge nowadays is to look for the right niche for traditional diplomacy – and it seems that it has not been found yet.