LONDON — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak chastised the Chinese premier on Sunday for “unacceptable” interference in British democracy, after a newspaper reported that a parliamentary researcher was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of spying for Beijing.
Sunak said he raised the issue with Prime Minister LI Qiang when the two met at the Group of 20 summit in India. He told British broadcasters in New Delhi that he had expressed “my very strong concern about any interference in our parliamentary democracy, which is clearly unacceptable.”
The two men met after the Metropolitan Police confirmed that a man in his 20s and a man in his 30s had been arrested in March under the Official Secrets Act. Neither has been charged and both have been bailed until October pending further investigations.
The Sunday Times reported that the young man was a parliamentary researcher working with senior lawmakers from the ruling Conservatives, including Alicia Kearns, who now heads the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee, and her predecessor in the role, Tom Tugendhat, who is now a minister safety. . The newspaper said the suspect held a pass allowing full access to the Parliament building, which was issued to lawmakers, staff and journalists after security screening.
Tensions between Britain and China have risen in recent years over allegations of economic fraud, human rights abuses and Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties in the former British colony of Hong Kong.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has denounced China’s “unacceptable” interference in Britain’s affairs.REUTERS
Britain’s Conservatives are divided over how hard a line to take with Beijing and how much access Chinese firms should have to the UK economy. More hawkish Tories want Beijing to declare a threat, but Sunak has referred to China’s growing power as a “challenge.”
Former UK Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said news of March’s arrest “gives the lie to the government’s attempt not to see China as a systemic threat.”
UK spy services have sounded louder warnings about Beijing’s covert activities. In November, the head of the domestic intelligence agency MI5, Ken McCallum, said “the activities of the Chinese Communist Party pose the most game-changing strategic challenge to the UK” Foreign intelligence chief Richard Moore of MI6 said in July that China was its own. “the most important strategic focus” of the agency.
In January 2022, MI5 issued a rare public warning, saying a London-based lawyer was trying to “covertly intervene in UK politics” on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. It alleges lawyer Christine Lee acted in coordination with China’s ruling party’s United Front Work Department, an organization known to have Chinese influence overseas.
Chinese President Xi JinpingREUTERS
An opposition Labor MP, Barry Gardiner, received more than 500,000 pounds ($685,000) from Lee between 2015 and 2020, mostly for office costs, and his son works in Gardiner’s office. Lee and the Chinese government both deny wrongdoing.
China has repeatedly criticized so-called British interference in its internal affairs and denied interference in the politics of foreign countries.
Sunak and Li met days after Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited Beijing, the highest-level visit by a British politician to China for several years. Chinese President Xi Jinping did not attend the G20 meeting in India.
Sunak defended her cautious approach to engagement, saying “there’s no point in joking around – I’d rather be out there directly expressing my concerns, and that’s what I’m doing today.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
