Chinese Cyber Attacks:
Lord Alton of Liverpool (Independent Crossbench Peer), a Patron of Hong Kong Watch and Vice Chair of the APPG on Uyghurs -Speaking Today After the Remarks of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon Oliver Dowden MP, to The House of Commons.
“There has been a frenzy today about China cyber-attacks in 2021 – one of which was against me – along with sanctions imposed on me and six other parliamentarians three years ago. Today the Deputy Prime Minister told the Commons that the 2024 response has been “robust” and “swift”. I dread to think what leisurely or weak would have looked like.
But beyond irritating interference with parliamentary email accounts and attempts to subvert data bases – which we are told never got anywhere – we mustn’t lose sight of the horrific things which the CCP does to its own people.
Why are there still no sanctions against State Officials in Hong Kong – nothing to match the sanctions imposed on 47 in Hong Kong by the US – and a tepid response which is wholly incommensurate with 1 million Uyghur Muslim subjected to genocide, the brutal oppression of Tibetan Buddhists, the crimes against Falun Gong, the daily intimidation of Taiwan, and the persecution of political and religious dissidents like the courageous journalist and lawyer, Zhang Zhan. She went to Wuhan to ask awkward questions about the origins of Covid and has been languishing in jail ever since. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong there are 1700 political dissidents, like Jimmy Lai, in prison or on trial.
Will the Foreign Secretary be raising those issues with the Chinese Ambassador when he calls him in tomorrow?
I have repeatedly moved amendments and raised questions in Parliament about the grave threat posed by the CCP regime. The Government’s response has been pusillanimous. And too often they have closed the door once the horse has bolted – as with Huawei and Hikvision – at enormous retrospective cost to British taxpayers.
Not only should China now be listed as a systemic threat to the UK and placed in the enhanced tier of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, but we should also be strategically and urgently re-examining every aspect of our economic dependency on China – not least in technology and electric car production and every aspect of public procurement.
This has been a gravy train for too many people who yearn for a return to a “golden age” of free-flowing China money. We currently have a trade deficit with China of £50 billion and this must be replaced by resilience, not least by increased British manufacturing.
The huge hype and around cyber crime should not be allowed to disguise the abject failure to take seriously the new axis of dictators and authoritarians regime – including Russia, Iran, and North Korea – but with China’s CCP at its apex.”
