ANDREW NEIL: China is not invincible or unstoppable but until we stand up to it Beijing will be right to see us as a paper tiger

The news that a parliamentary researcher has been arrested in Westminster on suspicion of spying for China should surprise no one.

Just two months ago, parliament’s well-informed Intelligence and Security Committee reported that China has been targeting Britain ‘prolifably and aggressively’ for some time.

The suspect denies that he is a spy and of course he should be considered innocent until proven guilty (that’s our way, if not China’s).

But even if it turns out he is falsely accused, there are plenty of others doing their bit for China in large parts of British society, not just in parliament and government, but also in business, academia, the media and even local government.

The goals are always the same: to stop key institutions and influential people in Britain from being critical of China; to intimidate those who are not easily deterred so that they might fall in line out of fear; and threatening violence or worse against any anti-communist dissent from China within our own hugely successful and patriotic Chinese community.

Britain is also not alone in being targeted by China. All our key allies are subject to the same unwanted attention. China knows what it is doing by targeting Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Together they form the ‘Five Eyes’: the world’s most advanced intelligence gathering and sharing alliance. Get into their systems and the world is your oyster.

China has been active in the parliaments of Australia and New Zealand. The head of Australia’s security intelligence agency has revealed a ‘Chinese plot’ to get sympathetic candidates elected to parliament as Labor MPs. His Kiwi equivalent has spoken of China’s “growing aggression” and its “significant interference” in New Zealand politics.

The parliamentarians are subject to a constant barrage of Chinese propaganda. The Chinese ambassador to Wellington, in his sixth letter to New Zealand lawmakers this year, was blunter than ever as he reminded them how dependent the Kiwi economy is on China, with 25 percent of exports going there and most tourists being Chinese.

Canada is investigating Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections, so much so that China is believed to have played a major role in dethroning a conservative Canadian MP, Kenny Chiu, who had emigrated from Hong Kong.

Beijing is obsessed with suppressing dissent among ethnic Chinese living in democracies and has not hesitated to intimidate human rights activists and dissidents in the West.

The FBI recently discovered that China was running a secret police station in New York whose primary purpose was to spy on the city’s Chinese population.

The Chinese police are not alone in Manhattan. They are everywhere. We know this thanks to the brave people at the Spanish human rights organization Safeguard Defenders, who last year revealed that there were more than 100 secret Chinese police stations on five continents, including in London, Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin, as well as in most of the other continents . Europe, whose main goal was to silence critics of China. It’s important to understand what’s going on here.

“What we’re seeing coming out of China is more and more attempts to crack down on dissent around the world, to threaten people, to harass people, to make them afraid enough that they will remain silent or else they will be sent back to China. Safeguard Defenders told CNN.

‘It starts with phone calls. They could intimidate your relatives in China, threaten you, do absolutely anything to persuade the targets abroad to come back. If that doesn’t work, they will deploy secret agents abroad. They send them from Beijing and use methods such as baiting and trapping.”

The suspected Chinese spy in Westminster denies he is a spy and of course he should be considered innocent until proven guilty (that’s our way if not China’s)

China thinks it has the right to enforce this because under Chinese law its citizens are subject to the laws of the Communist Party wherever they live

Beijing euphemistically calls it “persuasion to return” and considers it legitimate because democracies generally will not hand over people to dictatorships like China. The European Court of Human Rights has effectively banned its member states (including Britain) from extraditing anyone under their jurisdiction to China. Hence the ‘conviction’.

China believes it has the right to enforce this because under Chinese law its citizens are subject to the laws of the Communist Party wherever they live. And China’s National Intelligence Law requires its people and companies to assist Beijing’s spies when asked — and keep that assistance secret.

It’s not just ethnic Chinese who are being targeted. A prominent Belgian politician, Samuel Cogolati, decided to draft a resolution for the Belgian parliament condemning China’s ‘crimes against humanity’, referring to its genocidal treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

His email system was immediately attacked by Beijing-sponsored hackers. When Belgian parliamentarians planned hearings on the Uyghurs in May 2021, parliament was closed by a massive cyber offensive. The Australian parliament has been similarly attacked.

Given all this – and more – it is unbelievable that British ministers are still debating whether China should be labeled a ‘threat’ rather than just a ‘systemic competitor’. How much more proof do they need?

Or maybe it’s unbelievable. Former top Foreign Office official Simon (now inevitably Lord) McDonald opined this week in response to the suspected spy’s arrest that it was a “legitimate purpose” for China to want to know what was happening in the country. Westminster. We cannot have “one rule for the US, France and Germany and another for China,” he added.

It’s been a long time since I heard such gross nonsense, even from a mandarin at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Of course, we should have different rules for close allies, with whom we share intelligence, versus aggressive totalitarian states that try to steal our secrets. The idea that we need to be ‘consistent’ in this regard is stupidity.

But I fear this is all too common in our ruling establishment. McDonald may have disappeared from the FO, but his attitude still lingers there, as evidenced by Secretary of State James Cleverly’s milk-and-water approach to China.

Former top Foreign Office official Simon (now inevitably Lord) McDonald (pictured) this week, in response to the suspected spy’s arrest, opined that it was a ‘legitimate aim’ for China to find out what was happening at Westminster

It’s time to get serious about China. It has only been reinforced by our weak response to the looting. We did next to nothing when thugs from the Chinese consulate in Manchester dragged a peaceful Hong Kong protester onto the consular grounds to beat him.

We know that Beijing, with the help of the sinister United Front Work Department, a Chinese communist vehicle for influence and infiltration, is seeking sympathizers of Chinese descent to hold political office and is actively recruiting former parliamentarians, military personnel and hires officials for lucrative posts in Chinese. businesses. The government needs to be much tougher in holding those who hold the Chinese shilling accountable.

The head of MI5 says China is the ‘most game-changing strategic challenge’ facing Britain. The goal is to undermine democracies like Britain to make the world safer for autocracy. As befits the Middle Kingdom, the oldest civilization in the world, it is here for the long haul. We must be that too.

For starters, China should be placed in the ‘enhanced tier’ of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which requires strict checks on all organizations linked to China, including companies and universities. Failure to register such links is a criminal offense punishable by a prison sentence of five years. That will help us get a handle on China’s nefarious practices.

It must be clear what we are dealing with. China is a totalitarian state with a huge annual military budget that it uses to create military forces strong enough to dominate the Asian Pacific. But for all it spends on defense, it spends even more on surveilling and oppressing its own people. We cannot allow it to get away with that on our own sovereign territory.

China is not invincible or unstoppable, despite many commentators portraying it as such. The economy is faltering, the debt mountain is the largest the world has ever seen, the currency is crumbling like a stone, and so is the population. The country’s ability to attract foreign investment has collapsed and its youth are now experiencing mass unemployment.

Our opponent is not 3 meters tall. But unless we stand up to it on our own shores, it is right to continue to think of ourselves as a paper tiger.