LONDON – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak scolded China’s prime minister on Sunday for “unacceptable” interference in British democracy, after a newspaper reported that a Parliamentarian investigator 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 a Group of 20 summit in India. He told British broadcasters in New Delhi that he had expressed “my grave concern about any interference in our parliamentary democracy, which is obviously unacceptable.”
The two men met after the Metropolitan Police confirmed that a man in his 20s and a man in his 30s were arrested in March under the Official Secrets Act. Neither man has been charged and both have been released on bail until October pending further investigations.
The Sunday Times reported that the young man was a parliamentary researcher who worked with senior Conservative government lawmakers, including Alicia Kearns, who now heads the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee, and her predecessor in that role, Tom Tugendhat, who is now security minister. . . The newspaper said the suspect had a pass allowing him full access to Parliament buildings, granted to lawmakers, staff and journalists after a security investigation.
Tensions between Britain and China have risen in recent years over accusations of economic subterfuge, human rights abuses and Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties in the former British colony of Hong Kong.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak criticized China’s “unacceptable” interference in British affairs.REUTERS
British Conservatives are divided over how hard a line to take with Beijing and how much access Chinese companies should have to the UK economy. The most hawkish Conservatives want Beijing to be declared a threat, but Sunak has referred to China’s growing power as a “challenge.”
Former UK Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said news of the March arrests “debunks the government’s attempt not to view China as a systemic threat”.
The UK spy services have issued increasingly strong warnings about Beijing’s covert activities. In November, the head of the domestic intelligence agency MI5, Ken McCallum, said that “the activities of the Chinese Communist Party represent the most revolutionary strategic challenge to the United Kingdom.” Foreign intelligence chief Richard Moore of MI6 said in July that China was his agency’s “most important strategic focus.”
In January 2022, MI5 issued a rare public alert, saying that a London-based lawyer was trying to “covertly interfere in UK politics” on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. He alleged that lawyer Christine Lee was acting in coordination with the Chinese ruling party’s United Front Work Department, an organization known for exerting Chinese influence abroad.
The president of China, Xi JinpingREUTERS
An opposition Labor Party lawmaker, Barry Gardiner, received more than 500,000 pounds ($685,000) from Lee between 2015 and 2020, mostly for office expenses, and his son worked in Gardiner’s office. Lee and the Chinese government deny wrongdoing.
China has repeatedly criticized what it calls British interference in its internal affairs and has denied meddling in the politics of foreign nations.
Sunak and Li met days after Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited Beijing, the highest-level trip by a British politician to China for several years. Chinese President Xi Jinping did not attend the G20 meeting in India.
Sunak defended his cautious engagement approach, saying “there’s no point in criticizing from the sidelines – I’d rather be there expressing my concerns directly, and that’s what I did today.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn