Yahoo News China spy scandal: UK is now in 'very dangerous' era, senior Tory MP warns
What's happening?
A Conservative MP has warned that China is the "biggest geopolitical threat that we face this century," after a House of Commons researcher was arrested on suspicion of being a spy.
Police have confirmed two men, one in his 20s and another in his 30s, were arrested under the Official Secrets Act in March, on suspicion of spying on Parliament for the Chinese government. Insiders have told the Telegraph that security services are poised to unmask a number of Chinese spies in the coming months.
Reacting to the news, Tobias Ellwood told LBC that a "clash between the United States and China" is "looming" and that the world is "splintering into two fields of influence".
He warned that the world had entered a "very dangerous era" of two emerging "gangs" - China Vs the West - and cautioned that the West was reducing in size and influence. He said the lack of international cohesion was compounding the problem - with Russia's invasion of Ukraine highlighting that.
The MP for Bournemouth East, and chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, told his followers on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Sunday that, in his view, the detection of a spy for the Chinese government in the House of Commons should not be presumed to be an isolated incident, "but potentially part of a wider, long-term, Chinese strategy to infiltrate Parliament".
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Parliamentary researcher ‘who spied for China’ is arrested (PA)
Intelligence services set to unmask China spies (Telegraph)
We've entered a very dangerous era of insecurity (Tobias Ellwood on LBC)
Yahoo News looks at the reactions to the story and what it signifies in terms of China as a threat
We are too economically aligned with China
The former Labour justice secretary, Lord Falconer, said the government must do “everything in their power” to stop China's behaviour. He told Talk TV: “It most certainly poses a threat to us but our economy is too intertwined with theirs to break with them without pain."
A House of Lords report in July this year called the relationship between the UK and China "complex and multifaceted". It said that in recent decades the relationship has been shaped by events such as the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. Economic ties have also played a significant role in relations, and China is one of the UK's largest trading partners.
Data published by the Department for Business and Trade in June this year revealed that China was the UK’s fourth largest trading partner at the end of 2022, accounting for 6.5 percent of total UK trade. In the same period, total trade of goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and China was £111billion, which represented an increase of £17.2bn (18.3 percent) from the year to the end of Quarter 4 in 2021.
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UK-China relations (House of Lords report, July 2023)
Our economy is too intertwined with theirs (Lord Falconer on TalkTV)
'China is spying on us, so what?'
Rory Cormac, professor of International Relations, specialising in secret intelligence and covert action, at the University of Nottingham, has said some of the reaction to the news has been misguided.
"Espionage is serious, but such spying is hardly a serious escalation of what is already a difficult relationship with a state which undoubtedly poses a threat," he wrote in the Spectator, commenting that the prospect of China spying on the UK should neither be regarded as surprising nor a major escalation.
Cormac goes on to write that the greater concern facing the UK should be of around China "actively influencing and interfering in UK democracy", adding: "What is worrying... is that whatever [the alleged spy] was up to, it forms part of a wider approach combined with espionage, propaganda, economic investment, political lobbying, interfering in universities, cyber activity and more."
It's an issue Rishi Sunak raised with the Chinese Prime Minister in a private meeting last week.
"I raised a range of different concerns that we have in areas of disagreement and, in particular, my very strong concerns about any interference in our parliamentary democracy, which is obviously unacceptable.”
Read more: China is spying on us, so what? (Spectator)
China must be 'a threat'
Liz Truss and other senior Tory MPs have lined up to pressure Rishi Sunak to designate China as a “threat” to the UK following the arrest.
The so-called China hawks on the Tory benches did not hold back after the Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said China represented a “systemic challenge” to the UK.
Truss was joined by the likes of Tory former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and veteran MP Sir Bernard Jenkin, who urged the Government to specifically label China as a “threat” to the UK.
“Does he (Oliver Dowden) agree that what we need to do is to recognise that China is the largest threat, both to the world and to the United Kingdom, for freedom and democracy?", Truss said.
In November last year, Sunak said the "golden era" of relations between the UK and China was over amid fears over the state's "greater authoritarianism", though he was criticised in some quarters for not going further in his condemnation.
