Chinese Consul General: Manchester Protest

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to make a statement on the role of the Chinese consul general, who it now appears took part in the assault of Bob Chan.

[The Minister for the Americas and the Overseas Territories (Jesse Norman)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question and deeply aware of the strength of feeling in this House and the other place about the scenes of violence at the consulate of the People’s Republic of China in Manchester on Sunday afternoon. I am happy to provide an update on our response. You have been kind enough, Mr Speaker, to indicate that you will allow me to speak for a couple more minutes to set out the position.

As the House will know, on Sunday afternoon officials were in touch with Greater Manchester police regarding the incident. On Monday, officials spoke to the Chinese embassy to express our very serious concerns at the reports and demand an explanation. FCDO officials were clear that all diplomats and consular staff based in the UK must respect UK laws and regulations. On Tuesday, I announced in this House that the Foreign Secretary had issued a summons to express His Majesty’s Government’s deep concern at the incident and demand an explanation for the apparent actions of the staff at the consulate general.

Following my statement, the Chinese chargé d’affaires attended a summons at the FCDO in his capacity as acting ambassador. For the avoidance of any doubt, I should say that the Chinese ambassador is currently out of the UK and it is standard practice in such circumstances to summon the chargé d’affaires. I should also be clear that receiving an official summons from the Foreign Secretary is not, as has been described, a light rap on the knuckles but the delivery of a stern message, well understood within the context of diplomatic protocol. It is customary for senior officials to deliver such messages. These summons are not an invitation for an ambassador to have an audience with the Foreign Secretary or Ministers; in any case, given that the chargé d’affaires was involved, it was doubly appropriate that they should be delivered by a senior official.

In the summons the official set out that peaceful protest is a fundamental part of British society and that everyone in the United Kingdom has the right to express their views peacefully and without fear of violence. He reiterated our clear expectation that diplomatic and consular staff should conduct themselves in accordance with UK law. We have made it absolutely clear to the Chinese embassy that the apparent behaviour of consulate general officials during the incident, as it appears from the footage—more of which is coming out, even as we discuss this—is completely unacceptable.

The independent police investigation is now under way. Greater Manchester police have been clear that there are many strands to what is a complex and sensitive inquiry and that it may take some time. As the Foreign Secretary has said, we await the details of the investigation, but in the meantime I have instructed our ambassador to deliver a clear message directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing about the depth of concern at the apparent actions by consulate general staff. Let me be clear that if the police determine that there are grounds to charge any officials, we would expect the Chinese consulate to waive immunity for those officials. If it does not, diplomatic consequences will follow.

Finally, allow me to reiterate to the House the value that we place on the Hong Kong community in the UK. When the national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, this Government acted immediately in announcing the scheme for British national overseas status holders and their dependants. Since then, more than 100,000 people and their families have made the decision to move to the UK to live, work and make it their new home. I want to put on the record, here, now, again and officially, a reaffirmation of our unwavering support for them and our commitment to their safety. They are most welcome here. Recognising the interest that this issue has across the House, the Government will seek to update the House on this matter next week.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Mr Speaker, I am grateful to you for granting this urgent question, which follows Tuesday’s urgent question secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns).

It is worth reminding the House of what happened in the Chinese consulate’s grounds on Sunday, where there was an appalling attack on a peaceful protester. We saw appalling videos of Bob Chan being dragged into the consulate’s grounds and seriously abused, and it now appears that the consul general played a part in that physical attack.

Mr Chan is a Hong Kong refugee whom we have welcomed over here. I and others on both sides of the House are working together to help people get out of Hong Kong, and that community now feels very frightened by what the Chinese Government’s representatives are doing in the UK. Mr Chan gave a statement to the media for the first time yesterday. His wife and child were in the room, and it was a very moving statement. He spoke of how badly bruised and damaged he is, and how frightened he is. I thought it was very brave of him, because he now fears being targeted by the Chinese Communist party here in the United Kingdom.

Overnight, we discovered that the consul general has admitted that not only did he take part in the attack but that he was responsible for, in his own words, pulling Mr Chan’s hair and tearing his scalp. That is the consul general, let alone the others who were there.

I have worked with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and others in this House to help Hong Kong refugees, and I credit the Government for their work to get those with British national overseas passports over here. I now urge the Government to be much clearer than just using diplomatic language; I urge them to make it clear, in the light of this new evidence, that it is not just unacceptable that any consular individual should have taken part in anything like this, but that any consular individual who is proved to have been a perpetrator of this outrageous and violent attack on Mr Chan will immediately be made persona non grata and sent back to China. The Government have the diplomatic power to dismiss them. Whether or not there are criminal proceedings, the fact is we do not want them here in the UK and they must go.

I urge my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to come to the Dispatch Box and show the resolution that is necessary to send that message to China. He should ignore what other people and officials might say about being careful of tit for tat, get to the Dispatch Box and simply say, “They will leave the United Kingdom. Anyone involved in that attack is not welcome, and the ambassador will be informed of that forthwith.”

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his further remarks. We should be absolutely clear that participating in an assault, if that is what is determined to have happened, is completely outside the expectations of our rule of law. If such a thing had taken place in front of the British consulate in Shanghai—that question was raised in the House only two days ago—we would, of course, refer the matter to the local policing authorities, as we would have expected in this case. I take his point, which he makes very strongly.

My right hon. Friend is also right to insist, as he insisted during Tuesday’s urgent question, that the diplomatic channel and the legal channel are distinct. I have seen the footage he describes, and I think it looks very black and very damning, but we are going through a process and we need to make a factual determination. Once that is done, and if the situation is found to be as we fear—that is to say there has been a criminal offence of some kind—diplomatic consequences will follow.