Finn Lau’s meeting with a Westminster researcher who was later arrested on suspicion of spying for China lasted just 20 minutes. Nearly a year later he is mulling the potential consequences. Lau, an exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy activist with a £100,000 bounty on his head, has a lingering suspicion that some of his ideas for putting more pressure on China appear not to have made it beyond their meeting. Exiled Chinese dissidents such as Lau, as well as Hong Kong activists and others including advocates of Tibetan independence and China’s…
Tag: Politics
Sustained rift with China would harm UK universities, report warns
UK universities would be hugely damaged by a sustained diplomatic rift between Britain and China, according to a report that predicts difficulty in replacing the Chinese students who now take up more than one in four PhD places. The study, co-authored by the former universities minister Jo Johnson, found that many leading institutions remain highly dependent on Chinese students for tuition fee income as well as to fill postgraduate research courses in subjects such as economics, science and technology. A sudden inflaming of tensions between the UK and China –…
High-octane, sexy, glamorous? Sorry, in this Sunak era even the ‘spy’ scandals are dull | Marina Hyde
The opening to the James Bond movie Spectre follows the titular spy in Day of the Dead costume as he moves through vast crowds at the spectacular celebrations in Mexico City. Into a six-star hotel, past a masquerade party, whereupon his glamorous companion produces a key. Up to her room, passionate kiss, she’s on the bed – but he’s stripped down to his Savile Row suit and a Glock 17, and is straight out the window across the rooftops to assassinate a man for having a terrible ponytail. Misses, survives…
Forget ‘Chinese spies’, trade not espionage should be Britain’s main concern with China | Simon Jenkins
Today’s claim that a Chinese spy in his 20s cruising the Westminster drinks circuit might pose a threat to the British state is absurd. MPs always overstate their role in foreign affairs. Boris Johnson, back in 2017 when he was foreign secretary, might have felt a macho thrill from sending an aircraft carrier to the South China Sea – where it could be sunk in an hour – but Britain’s defences are no more vulnerable to Chinese attack than China’s are to Britain. It is all defence lobby hyperventilation. Linking…
Badenoch says it would be mistake to call China a ‘foe’ as spy suspect arrest revives Tory calls to toughen approach – UK politics live
Good morning. One of the many aspects of politics that has changed dramatically over the past decade is the way the government views China. David Cameron came to power determined to establish warm relations with Beijing, but in recent years relations have deteriorated considerably and a Conservative government that views China with considerable suspicion is being urged by some of its hawkish backbenchers to go much further, and to treat it as a hostile opponent. The revelation yesterday that a parliamentary researcher linked to the Conservative has been arrested on…
Britain has done more than ignore the Uyghur genocide – from politics to business, it is complicit | Rahima Mahmut
This week, yet another foreign secretary has justified engaging with the perpetrators of genocide, on the basis that going to Beijing would allow them to raise concerns in private. According to an official statement, James Cleverly made clear the UK’s “strength of feeling about the mass incarceration of the Uyghur people” in his bilateral meetings with senior Chinese government figures. Once again, this has shown China that when it comes to the mass contravention of human rights, the UK government has nothing but words in response and fails to stand…
Cleverly’s humiliating China visit was the perfect symbol of isolated, ill-led ‘global Britain’ | Simon Tisdall
Like a proselytising lay minister naively intent on calming troubled waters, foreign secretary James Cleverly flew into Beijing this week on a whinge and a prayer. The whinge comprised a long list of British grievances ranging from China’s attitude to Ukraine and Hong Kong to its spying on UK officials and sanctions on MPs. Cleverly’s prayer was that his hosts would not realise that, when it comes to pursuing a coherent China policy based on deliberate, principled choices backed by political will and economic muscle, rudderless Britain is all at…
Thursday briefing: What we learned from the foreign secretary’s trip to China
Good morning, or perhaps 你好 (nǐ hǎo). Hopefully James Cleverly got at least that far on Duolingo before the UK foreign secretary’s plane touched down in Beijing this week on a trip aimed at resetting ties after a long period of tension over security, investment and human rights concerns at home and abroad. It was the first visit to China by a UK foreign secretary for five years. Remember the last time, when Jeremy Hunt somehow ended up announcing that his Chinese wife was Japanese? Very odd. The meeting also…
The Guardian view on the UK and China: Britain is muddling along in dealing with Beijing | Editorial
There’s an old joke about a lost traveller asking how to reach their destination. The local they stop helpfully tells them: “If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.” The foreign secretary made it to Beijing on Wednesday, but finds himself in something of the same situation when it comes to China policy. In a report published the same day, the foreign affairs committee rightly diagnosed a lack of coherence in the UK government’s approach to date. James Cleverly began from an unenviable position. For too long, the west…
James Cleverly says he has raised human rights concerns with China – video
The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, who is in China to meet government officials, has faced criticism from members of the Conservative party who want a tougher line against a state that has imposed sanctions against several British MPs and peers for speaking out about human rights violations in the country. Speaking to Sky News, Cleverly said he had raised rights issues with Chinese officials. Pressed over violations in Xinjiang province, he said: ‘I’ve had a number of conversations with senior representatives of the Chinese government, and I have raised…