Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has told an audience in London the world needs to “wake up” and confront the joint menace of Russia and China if it wants to maintain a “secure world order.”
Speaking at the London Defence Conference, Mr. Shapps said, “An axis of authoritarian states led by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have escalated and fuelled conflicts and tensions.”
“They have increasingly been working together. And today I can reveal that we have evidence that Russia and China are collaborating on combat equipment for use in Ukraine,” he added.
Mr. Shapps said, “U.S. and British defence intelligence can reveal that lethal aid is now flying from China to Russia and into Ukraine.”
In a reference to the NATO alliance, Mr. Shapps said: “It’s time for the world to wake up. And that means translating this moment to concrete plans and capabilities, and that starts with laying the foundations for an alliance-wide increase in spending on our collective deterrent.”
Mr. Shapps said: “In response to this continuing hostility and our more dangerous world, the UK has been at the forefront, backed up by our actions and our resources. We are leading by example.”
“Specifically the government has committed to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on defence by 2030,” he added.
Mr. Shapps said the government would inject £75 billion into the UK’s defence budget over the next six years.
Russia and China ‘Covering Each Other’s Back’
In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Shapps said, “As we saw from Putin’s state visit to Beijing and the 64 percent growth in trade between Russia and China since the full-scale invasion … they’re covering each other’s back.”Dylan Earl, 20, and four other men await trial next year accused of conspiring to commit espionage activities in Britain on behalf of Russia, the first prosecutions of this kind under the new National Security Act.
Mr. Shapps said, “Apparent intelligence operations targeting Border Force and parliamentary staff and cyberattacks on government, business, and our critical national infrastructure … all of that puts Britain on the frontline of malign activity.”
He said: “There was talk of a so-called golden era in UK–China relations. Russia was a member of the G8. Nuclear talks were ongoing with Iran that would lead to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.”
He said around this time London had hosted the Olympic Games and Britain won 65 medals, exactly the same number as Russia.
“Four years later, we discovered how Russia had done so well and it had nothing to do with their sportsmanship,” said Mr. Shapps, who said the World Anti-Doping Authority later found the Russian team had “corrupted the London Games on an unprecedented scale.”
Mr. Shapps said Russia and its allies are using the “very same playbook” they did at the Olympics but this time their aims are “strategic, political, and economic goals.”
He said the world in 2024 was much “more dangerous” than it was in 2012 and he said, “Because today there is so much more at stake than those Olympic gold medals.”
“In 2012 it was doping and cheating in sport; today, it is about freedom, livelihoods, and a secure world order,” added Mr. Shapps.
