In Parliament Lord Alton highlighted betrayal of the national interest, by allowing the UK’s security, academia, technology, and political systems to be interfered with by the Chinese Communist Party.
Look through the lens of Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Wuhan, or Xinjiang or through the lens of Xi Jinping’s support for Putin in Ukraine and the security threat posed by the CCP becomes stark and self-evident.
Consider the unprecedented public warning from the Director of Mi5 and the FBI Director last week, which stated that the “Chinese Communist Party is covertly applying pressure across the globe” including through “covert theft”, “technology transfers”, and “interference” in our political systems.
Such interference was illustrated by the case of Christine Lee, the Chinese spy, who sought to influence members of this very Parliament, boasting that she had even secured amendments to a Bill before this House: Just the tip of a subversive tip of an iceberg.
Too many political and business elites have naively considered the CCP and Chinese state-owned enterprises as benign, welcoming unprecedented levels of Chinese investments into strategic sectors of our economy, research partnerships with institutions linked to the People’s Liberation Army, and even considering a free trade agreement between the UK and China.
This week alone, Treasury officials were reported to be scrambling to ensure the restart of the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, despite Parliament and the Foreign Secretary stating that China’s treatment of the Uyghurs is “genocide.”
Or take public procurement.
In a variety of sectors. we are far too dependent on Chinese companies – from NHS PPE to surveillance technology cameras in numerous government departments. The Cabinet Office told me that there are over a million Hikvision cameras in the UK. This is a Chinese company that the Government openly admits is a security risk, receives nearly half its funding from the state, and which has been blacklisted in the USA – our Five Eyes ally – for its active complicity in in gross human rights violations in Xinjiang.
Then there are long-term security concerns regarding Chinese takeovers of strategic UK industries – from the attempted takeover of the UK’s biggest manufacturer of semi-conductors Newport Wafer Fab to the graphene maker Perpetuus.
We must strengthen resilience, protect cutting-edge technology, and safeguard our research facilities. Universities must get off the gravy train and be more vigilant about their partnerships and theft of sensitive academic research.
It is indefensible – worse, a betrayal of our national interests – for UK universities to be working with and providing sensitive research on hypersonic missiles to companies and research institutions linked to the People’s Liberation Army.
