China has successfully penetrated every sector of the UK economy and the government has “readily accepted” Beijing cash “with few questions asked” for many years, blinded to the threat by a short-termist approach which is being outplayed by China’s strategy of looking decades ahead, a major report warns.
The UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee has released a major, four-years-in-the-making report which warns in damning terms that the United Kingdom is totally failing to prevent itself from being infiltrated and groomed by the Chinese Communist Party. Shockingly, the report found, it has been blind to these problems because “The Government has been so keen to take Chinese money that it has not been watching China’s sleight of hand”.
Indeed, so unprepared to face these problems as it is, the China report said that: “until recently, our Agencies did not even recognise that they had any responsibility for countering Chinese interference activity in the UK.” Taking advantage of this, the report said: “China has been buying up and seeking to control or influence the UK’s Industry and Energy sectors”.
China, which “almost certainly maintains the largest state intelligence apparatus in the world”, the report says, has “taken advantage of the policy of successive British Governments to boost economic ties between the UK and China” and in doing so has successfully penetrated “every sector of the UK’s economy”. The British government has been so thirsty for Chinese investment — former Prime Minister David Cameron is specifically named as an individual whose taking of Chinese money marks him out as a potentially compromised decision-maker — that “Chinese money was readily accepted by HMG with few questions asked”.
These problems remain. The committee said their attempts to be consulted on Chinese investment had been rebuffed by the government, noting: “the Government does not want there to be any meaningful scrutiny of sensitive investment deals.”
China is so interested in influencing the United Kingdom because it sees the nation as a key ally of the U.S., and particularly because it perceives the UK as a global opinion former. If Chinese influence and technology are accepted by British regulators and politicians, other nations will follow unquestioningly, it is claimed Beijing believes. Because of this status as an opinion former, the report stated “China views the UK as being of use in its efforts to mute international criticism”.
The Committee is chaired by Conservative Member of Parliament Julian Lewis, whose remarks are quoted in the paper. He underlined the nature of the struggle at hand as:
There is effectively a global values struggle going on in which China is determined to assert itself as a world power… if you think of UK interests as being in favour of good governance and transparency and good economic management… then I think that China represents a risk on a pretty wide scale.
While British institutions are now slowly waking up to the Chinese threat, a process that appeared to be kicked off by a decade of strongly pro-China Conservative Party governance coming to a sudden halt with questions over Huawei and 5G infrastructure, and then grown with Coronavirus, the volume of money involved could cloud eyes and influence judgement, the report said. Comparing the developing situation to that where Russian oligarchs were able to buy influence in London, the committee reported:
Our predecessor Committee sounded the alarm, in relation to Russia, that oligarchs are now so embedded in society that too many politicians cannot even take a decision on an investment case because they have taken money from those concerned. We know that China invests in political influence, and we question whether – with high-profile cases such as David Cameron (UK–China Fund), Sir Danny Alexander (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), Lord Heseltine (The 48 Group Club) and HMG’s former Chief Information Officer, John Suffolk (Huawei) – a similar situation might be arising in relation to China.
Breitbart News has reported on the big-money relationships bought by China in the past.
One particular case highlighted the degree to which some institutions appeared willing to take Chinese money but wished nevertheless to deny that they had links to the Chinese Communist Party. After a report on money sent to Cambridge University from Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2020, Jesus College contacted Breitbart News to issue a clarification that the cash had actually been received by the Cambridge China Development Trust, and that:
…apart from the fact the Trust is physically located inside the college, pays the college to use office space on its premises, and funds Jesus College’s China Centre which is run by a Jesus College professor, there is no relationship between the Cambridge China Development Trust and Jesus College.
Cambridge has subsequently been accused of being “infiltrated” by China’s Huawei. In 2020, a London think tank warned UK universities had become “worryingly dependent” on Chinese income.