China: Human Rights and Security

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, that was another excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and a brilliant peroration as he concluded, building on eight other excellent speeches we have heard in this debate, following its superb launch by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who has campaigned on this issue for many years. How wonderful it was to hear two robust speeches from Church of England Bishops rather than the usual fence-sitting stuff. I particularly liked what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester had to say. I think he is right: it is not just this tianxia culture. Is there not a deeply ingrained racist element, in that they believe that those of the Han ethnicity are the only real people and every other ethnic race are just vermin or infidels to be destroyed? I am grateful that the right reverend Prelate is nodding: I got at least something right in my speech today.

So what is China doing—the country described by the FCDO as a “strategic partner” with which this Government are determined to have a “pragmatic” relationship? Well, it is oppressing its own people, both directly through an extensive network of black jails and indirectly with no free press. This House and 11 other countries have said that the Chinese state is committing genocide in Xinjiang province and, in Tibet, it is seeking to deny a people their culture and identity. It is running what has been described as the

“world’s largest contemporary system of state-imposed forced labor”,

with up to 2.5 million Uighurs and members of other ethnic groups at risk of coerced work.

In Hong Kong, it has reneged on an internationally registered treaty with the UK, in order to deny the city’s residents their civil and political rights. It is stealing islands, building military bases and deploying paramilitary forces to bully its neighbours in the South China Sea, despite an international ruling that its claims are unfounded. It is engaged in the largest military build-up since World War II, adding the equivalent of the entire Royal Navy every two years. Its programme of civil-military fusion subserviates its economy to military needs. It is increasing its military exercises and incursions into Taiwan’s airspace and escalating the use of grey-zone activities to undermine both Taiwan’s will to resist and that of the international community to stand firm against aggression.

It is also waging a non-military war against Taiwan, by trying to eradicate its right to exist. Taiwan cannot get into the United Nations, nor any of its agencies. China has banned it from the World Health Organization, even though it was Taiwan that raised the alarm about Covid while China covered it up, and China has banned Taiwan from Interpol. China constantly seeks to change the wording of United Nations agreements to freeze out Taiwan.

Our own Intelligence and Security Committee has said that China runs the largest state intelligence service in the world and that it is a threat to our British industry and technology. Let us be clear that when I say China, I of course mean the Communist Party of China, not the whole of the Chinese people. It lied about the origins of Covid, lied to the World Health Organization, lied about the efficacy of its vaccines and spread conspiracy theories when seeking to divert responsibility and blame. It destroyed evidence and continues to withhold information on what it knows. It also launched a trade war against Australia, Norway and Lithuania when these countries asked questions about the Covid cover-up.

That is what is happening around the world. What about the UK? There is a long list of hostile Chinese aggressive acts against our United Kingdom; against individuals, the state and companies. On a daily basis, it is mounting massive cyberattacks against the UK, including one in March of this year targeting Members of Parliament and the Electoral Commission. A former UK Foreign Secretary said that torture on an industrial scale was happening in Xinjiang province. How can we have as a strategic partner a country committing genocide?

China blatantly steals our technologies, has infiltrated all our universities—often helped by craven university chancellors more interested in Chinese cash than freedom of speech. More recently, have we not seen just how high their spies can penetrate? This was not a one-off quirk but the result of many years of assiduous penetration of all our top institutions, and many thousands more are still beavering away in our companies, universities and institutions, seeking to undermine our will to resist Chinese aggression.

These are not the actions of a strategic partner with whom we should be having a pragmatic relationship. These are the actions of a hostile state. Why will the Government—and the last Government, too—not listen to our own top security experts? The current head of MI5, Ken McCallum, has said that China is engaged in espionage on an “epic scale”. He gives us that message every few months—let us listen to him. Of course China is a massive trading entity from which we cannot cut ourselves off. Trade with China? Yes. Trust China? No.

The Henry Jackson Society published a large report in 2020 showing that the UK was strategically dependent on China for 229 categories of goods, of which 57 had applications in critical national infrastructure. This must not continue. We have let China get a stranglehold over some of our vital commodities: parts and components which could cripple us economically, and possibly militarily, as a country if China turned off the tap. So we must accelerate onshoring and taking back to the UK things we should be making here—or we should have various suppliers from other friendly countries around the world.

China is a hostile country. It is a clear and present danger to the West. It seeks to dominate us economically, militarily and politically. China is not a strategic partner; it is just a ruthless commercial competitor, and we should treat it as such. We must open our eyes and acknowledge the nature of the threat posed to us; then we can plan to combat it. Only from a position of security and strength can we then consider being “pragmatic”.