China is now, without question, the single biggest threat to our security and the freedoms many of us have taken for granted. The evidence for this rests in China’s appalling behavior over a number of years. Beijing poses a clear and present threat to Britain and our allies.
During the G-20 summit, I was struck by the way that the United States and others went out of their way to speak of China having an important role in restraining Russia and in achieving our net-zero carbon reduction targets. I am struck, however, by the reality that when it comes to net-zero, China goes on building more and more coal-fired power stations. It obviously has no real intention of meeting such arbitrary carbon targets. Also, even as the G-20 was meeting, the Chinese delegation at the United Nations was busy voting against the reparation payments resolution regarding Russia’s obligations to Ukraine.
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It is ironic that here in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who had previously said China was a “systemic threat,” has now watered down this clear view of China to a “systemic challenge.” The government’s plans to replace the idea of China as a threat with a challenge have led to perhaps the strangest definition of how the U.K. will engage China in the future. Apparently, we will now adopt a policy of “robust pragmatism.” I am sure that Chinese President Xi Jinping will not lose sleep over that.
I do not know what more evidence the U.K. needs to recognize the simple fact that China poses a threat to us all. We have long known that the CCP forces Uyghur Muslims into coercive labor transfers in the Xinjiang region. Men are being put into slave labor camps, women are being forcibly sterilized, and their children are being placed into reeducation camps. It’s a system now recognized as genocide.
We have seen unofficial police stations threatening Chinese expats here in the U.K. and other Western nations. A few weeks ago in Manchester, the Chinese consul general led a brutal assault on Bob Chan, a peaceful democracy campaigner, actually dragging him inside the compound to administer the punishment of beating. Sadly, as I understand, this now appears to be normal practice by other Chinese diplomats around the world.
Clearly, the “golden era” of China-U.K. relations is over. The trouble with the West is that we continue to fail to take note of those nations that are becoming more dominant than us in both military and economic terms. China is militarizing the South China Sea illegally while stealing key technologies from us and our allies. That’s not to mention the unveiled threats to invade Taiwan. China, in plain view, has taken over Tibet, trashed the Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong’s governance, and is now arresting journalists and peaceful democracy campaigners and publishers in Hong Kong.
Last year, I and other colleagues in Parliament and our families were sanctioned by the Chinese government for pointing out Beijing’s growing threat and the increased restrictions on Chinese people both within China and on British soil. For too long now, the free world has turned a blind eye to the abuses and threats from China. Tougher action is needed to protect British citizens, human rights defenders, and pro-democracy activists who are targeted by the CCP.
It is time for the West to rid itself of its economic dependency on China and to rid itself of its supply chains containing slave labor products, and it is time to work together to recognize the scale of the threat President Xi now poses to the way we live our lives.
The clock is ticking.
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The Rt. Hon. Sir Iain Duncan Smith is a member of the U.K. Parliament and a former leader of the Conservative Party.
