UK Times: PM Johnson seeking to end reliance on some China imports

The UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the nation is seeking to end reliance on some China imports. 

This follows a number of headlines over the course of the pandemic that show how furious the UK is over China's handling of the novel coronavirus. UK government officials have been accusing China of spreading disinformation about the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in its borders.

Conservative PMs have also been urging the PM not to allow Huawei to build Britain's 5G networks. Yesterday, following Conservative MP Richard Drax 's questions to urge Johnson to copy France's review of defence supply chains because of concerns China is buying up companies at risk of going bust during the pandemic, Johnson told the Commons: "Drax is absolutely right to be concerned about investment, to be concerned about the buying up of UK technology by countries that ... may have ulterior motives."

The Times, lead paragraphs

Boris Johnson has ordered civil servants to draw up plans codenamed Project Defend to end Britain’s reliance on China for vital medical supplies and other strategic imports in light of the coronavirus crisis.

Officials across Whitehall have been asked to identify the country’s key economic vulnerabilities to potentially hostile foreign governments as part of a new approach to national security.

The initiative, led by Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, could lead to the government intervening to support the “repatriation” of key manufacturing capabilities such as pharmaceuticals as part of a new national resilience framework. It is also looking at supply chain issues where critical UK businesses rely on components from abroad to make finished products.

There are no direct market implications at this point, but it is all going into a stew of risk off down the line. Isolating China from the Western world is stretching the geopolitcal landscape in a dangerous fashion.