Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has warned that China’s “evil regime” has been exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to increase its wealth and power globally.
“Most of Europe is in turmoil, as is the USA. All around the world, economies are in free fall – with one notable exception: China,” observed the former Cabinet member in an article for The Telegraph.
“There is a deep sense of irony here. The country from which coronavirus came, and which did so little in the early days to help the rest of the world escape its spread, is now bouncing back by selling us the equipment we need to combat that very virus,” he said. He then cited the sale of personal protective equipment and items such as customised “work-from-home” computers.
“Even worse, investors in the West are queuing up to give China their money… Project Kow Tow is alive and well,” wrote the former soldier.
Sir Iain explained to readers that the Chinese communists have “understood how short-term democracies can be in their outlook” and have been exploiting this, “funded by the huge levels of Western investment into the country”, to lay down long-term plans for global dominance.
Citing as an example the Belt and Road project, he explained: “Sixty-eight countries, representing 65 per cent of the world’s population and 40 per cent of global GDP… signed up to an arrangement that leaves the poorer nations involved so utterly dependent on China that none dare challenge its appalling behaviour.”
Such is the economic pressure that the CCP can apply as a result of this “economic colonisation”, old-fashioned international forums such as the United Nations are now no check on its power, as their leverage “ensures that any complaint brought to the UN is vetoed”.
Advanced countries, too, are increasingly beholden to the East Asian powerhouse, he observed, pointing out how Australia was left “alone in the firing line” after its push for a real, independent inquiry into the cause of the coronavirus outbreak saw it denounced by Beijing and subjected to sanctions.
“The fault here lies with the free world,” Sir Iain declared.
“For too long, in the pursuit of quick profits, government after government has turned a blind eye to the growing abuses and aggression of China’s communist government. Business leaders, too, raced each other to invest. Now so many of them act as China’s useful idiots, defending its dictatorial government whenever required,” he lamented.
IDS, as Sir Iain is known in Britain, is not the first Tory to come alive to the danger which Western indulgence of the CCP has created in recent months.
Nick Timothy, Downing Street Chief of Staff for former Prime Minister Theresa May, has also revealed how the intelligence services had long cautioned prime ministers on how “Beijing would spy on Britain… steal our military and commercial secrets… [and] use their economic power to exert geopolitical pressure on us”. But, he said, they just “listened politely [and] failed to heed the warning” in pursuit of a “golden era” of friendship with the regime.
“[A] cynical bargain was struck. Britain would win foreign investment in its economy, but place itself at the mercy of a brutal and autocratic government,” he said of official policy prior to the pandemic.
More recently, new MI5 director-general Ken McCallum identified China as the biggest longer-term threat Britain faces in his first public address, warning that it puts Russia in the shade.
“If… the question is which state will be shaping our world across the next decade, presenting big opportunities and big challenges for the UK, the answer is China,” he said.
“Russian intelligence services [are] providing bursts of bad weather while China is changing the climate.”
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