Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden’s strongly worded statement in the House of Commons was not the most damaging start imaginable – but Britain should be prepared for Chinese retaliation.

Dowden announced on Monday that the government would impose sanctions on a Chinese technology company for conducting a malicious cyber campaign targeting several MPs and the Electoral Commission and leaking the personal data of approximately 40 million voters.

The measures mean that Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Technology Co., Ltd. and two Chinese citizens, Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, are effectively unable to do business in or with the UK and their assets will be frozen.

To underline this message, British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron will summon China’s ambassador to the UK, Zheng Zeguang, to “hold China accountable for its actions in these incidents”.

During the Chinese leader’s state visit in 2015, it seemed like ages since Cameron and President Xi Jinping had enjoyed a pint of pale ale at The Plow pub in Cazeden. Whether Zeguang, who worked in the Foreign Office for 40 years and read law for a year at Cardiff University in the 1980s, views his encounter with Cameron as a scary prospect is uncertain.

We shouldn’t be too exceptional about this.

The Chinese Embassy in the UK refuted the British government’s “blatant political manipulation and malicious slander” and demanded that it “immediately stop spreading false information.” But when China’s leadership looks back on Monday’s events, it will likely focus more on the fact that the U.S. Treasury Department also announced sanctions similar to those announced by Dowden.

Washington is pursuing criminal charges against seven Chinese hackers and is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to those identified as the wrongdoers.

What’s next? The Chinese embassy’s statement pointedly noted that “we have no interest or need to interfere in the UK’s internal affairs” – but trade between the UK and the People’s Republic of China reached £100bn last year, with China being our fifth country. -The largest business partner.

Despite this, less than 1% of UK foreign direct investment (FDI) goes to China, and Chinese direct investment in the UK accounts for less than half a percentage point of total UK investment.

China’s response so far has been a pious declaration of innocence and a high level of disgust at the West’s vulgar lies and propaganda, but they won’t let it go.

Retaliatory sanctions are almost inevitable because the Western stereotype of China as obsessed with “losing face” is well-founded and China is likely to find a handful of scapegoats.

However, this will not be the beginning of a full-blown economic or commercial conflict.

China’s economic growth is slowing, and the Chinese government is taking unusual steps to actively promote good news: Last week, Vice Finance Minister Liao Min issued an optimistic statement on the January and February budget data, one month earlier than usual comments Hours – Free statistics published.

It has been less than three weeks since Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao issued an optimistic briefing on exports.

The Chinese regime is renowned for its ability to take a long-term political view, an ability that has been highlighted by Westminster’s recent culture of treating the weekend as a major achievement.

It knows its economic prospects are in a difficult phase, with the housing market in the doldrums and a deflationary crisis looming. It also knows that Donald Trump is likely to be re-elected as president in November, so he has threatened to impose tariffs of more than 60% on Chinese imports into the United States.

There will be a crisis in Taiwan in the next few years. Even if China does not engage in full-scale military action, “unification” is so important to Xi Jinping’s worldview that he will make some aggressive gestures.

China’s defense spending will increase by 7% this year, and the People’s Liberation Army Navy is already the world’s largest navy, with nearly 800 ships and 380,000 active personnel. Xi Jinping has reason to suspect that Trump’s instinctive actions to defend Taiwan cannot be guaranteed after he becomes president.

So what is happening in the UK now must fit into a wider pattern.

There is no doubt that the Chinese government is outraged by the sanctions announced and wants a response.

But the bigger picture is everything, and at least some voices in the Chinese Communist Party’s Standing Committee will repeat Voltaire’s apocryphal last words when asked to renounce Satan: “This is not the time to make new enemies.”