MPs are set to be briefed on the cyber threat posed by China today, while a smaller group of parliamentarians will be told about specific threats against them.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is applying to the Speaker’s office to make a statement to parliament about China on Monday, Sky News understands.
Meanwhile, three MPs and a peer are due to be told about recent cyber attacks against them.
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Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron is set to brief the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs on Monday evening as well, and the topic will likely be raised here.
Rishi Sunak has declined to brand China a threat, despite pressure from some wings of the party.
A Downing Street source told Sky News: “The prime minister has always had a robust position on China; we call [their behaviour] out.
“We can’t cut all links with China – that would not be a sensible thing to do, not least on issues such as climate change – and we need to know what they are saying, what they are trying to do, working with partners and our Five Eyes allies.
“But there is no doubt we have an ‘eyes wide open’ approach.”
China’s behaviour will come under particular scrutiny this year with the UK, the US, India and a swathe of other countries holding elections.
Speaking to Sky News, Alicia Kearns, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: “I think politicians have to be concerned and also vigilant at all times.
“The reality is that hostile states will try to undermine our democracy, even in peacetime – if you want to call it that.
“This is the year where most elections around the world will be taking place as the biggest number of people to vote in one year ever. I am greatly concerned about what might be taking place not only in the UK, but around the world, and the way in which some hostile states may seek to try and influence the outcomes.”
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Tory MP Alicia Kearns
And speaking about threats to MPs, Ms Kearns added: “I’ve had attacks on my emails, which emanated from China.
“The threat is real, they are trying to undermine our democracy.
“And if we do not have a public strategy of which the whole country can unite, we will have gaps in our resilience and that will leave us vulnerable.”
Ms Kearns’s warnings come following reports in The Sunday Times that Alison Giles, parliament’s director of security, is set to brief former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative education minister Tim Loughton, crossbench peer Lord Alton of Liverpool and SNP MP Stewart McDonald.
All are critics of the Chinese government and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a group of MPs from across the world who probe Beijing’s activities.
Luke de Pulford, the creator and executive director of IPAC, told Sky News the statements from the government follow pressure from the intelligence and security services.
“Ministers are finally able to say what they have wanted them to for ages – which is actually we have got a real problem,” he said.
“This is a very serious security threat,” he added.
The UK’s attitudes to China appear to be hardening.
Last year, a parliamentary worker was arrested on suspicion of spying for the country, and in 2022 the head of MI5 warned alongside his FBI counterpart that China was a “game-changing challenge”.
It is a far cry from the “golden era” the then prime minister Lord Cameron announced between the UK and China alongside Chinese premier Xi Jinping in 2015.
There has also been concern over the way Chinese-owned technology companies, like ByteDance’s TikTok or Huawei, handle data.
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Ms Kearns added: “I should be clear, this is the Chinese Communist Party, this is not the Chinese people, this is not in their interests.
“This is a Chinese Communist Party trying to achieve its objectives and goals at the cost of ours, and the reality is they will continue to try to make us vulnerable by making us dependent on them at home, whether it comes to data or technology.
“And they will continue to try to extract data with technology such as TikTok, and they will continue to try to undermine us by buying up allies around the world and rewriting the multilateral system.”
The Chinese embassy has been approached for comment.