Too little, too late: we are still not facing up to the China threat

Three years ago, I, alongside seven of my colleagues and our families, were sanctioned by the Chinese government. We have faced harassment, attempted hacking and impersonation by China.

We were sanctioned as members of the Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China, (IPAC), set up by me and others to focus attention on the threat that China poses to the free world as well as those living in China. 

IPAC had released Chinese government papers and personal testimony, which showed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was committing genocide in Xinjiang. There is a Chinese government drive to eradicate the Uyghurs, a Turkic, Muslim people living in the western reaches of China. They have been subjected to slave labour, forced sterilisation and the “re-education” of children.

A tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC reached the same conclusion. 

Beijing is using similar tactics in Tibet to eradicate ethnic Tibetans. 

The Chinese government, having torn up the Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong, is at present brutally repressing democracy campaigners there. The arrest and prosecution of Jimmy Lai, a peaceful human rights advocate, on trumped-up charges under national security law shows that it will stop at nothing. 

China has seized the South China Sea and is militarising it, despite the UN making it clear they have no right to do so. It is threatening Taiwan with war unless that democratic state surrenders to Beijing. 

President Xi is clear that he wants China and its repressive system to become the natural form of government worldwide.

My concern is that the UK has dragged its feet in facing up to this growing threat. We seem to have learnt nothing from the abject failures of 1930s appeasement. 

Look at the difference in the way the United States responds to China’s brutal actions compared to us. 

The US has sanctioned more than 40 senior officials in Hong Kong over their imposition of the harsh security law. We, who are the co-signatories with China, haven’t sanctioned anyone. 

The US has sanctioned some 12 very senior officials over the genocide in Xinjiang; the UK, only three very lowly officials. 

We were briefed that today’s announcement would be a new departure. The Government had now investigated Chinese interference in our elections and action against parliamentarians and it was going to act robustly. We waited with bated breath. It has taken some three years to come to a conclusion on the Electoral Commission hack. 

And the result of this new dawn? Just two new sanctions, one of which is against a very small company. As I have said before, it was like watching an elephant giving birth to a mouse.

We have discovered that more than 40 UK parliamentarians have been hacked. Yet this is all we can do? 

Last week I received a Foreign Office internal memo saying that it would not be sanctioning any more people from China. When I presented that to the Government, at first it was denied and later it was put down to a mistake. 

That hardly sends the signal that we will be tough on China. The reality is that if the Government means business, it must now make it clear that it no longer sees China as an epoch defining challenge but as a systemic threat. We must put China on the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.

The US has today sanctioned seven clear offenders in China to our two. We have to do better. China is a threat and we must now recognise that.

Rt Hon Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP is a former cabinet minister and leader of the Conservative party