The fact that China is a strategic threat is not news. It is China’s global ambition to become a technological and economic superpower, on which other countries are reliant, that represents the greatest risk to the UK. China seeks to influence elites and decision-makers, to acquire information and Intellectual Property [IP] using covert and overt methods, and to gain technological supremacy. That’s according to the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of Parliament, which has published a Report on China.
Chairman of the ISC, the Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis, said: “This Report considers the nature of the national security threat from China broadly, as well as in relation to three specific areas (academia, industry and technology, and civil nuclear energy). It is the result of an extensive inquiry by present and past committees, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank past members of the ISC for all of their work.”
The parliamentarians point to China’s ‘whole-of-state’ approach. Chinese state-owned and non-state-owned companies, academic and cultural establishments and ordinary Chinese citizens are liable to be (willingly or not) co-opted into espionage and ‘interference operations’ overseas. The parliamentarians say that much of the impact of China on the UK’s national security is overt: through its economic might, its takeovers and mergers, and its interaction with academia and industry. China’s size, ambition and capability have enabled it to successfully penetrate every sector of the UK’s economy. China is similarly aggressive in its interference activities: while seeking to exert influence is legitimate, China oversteps the boundary, the report says. It has been particularly effective at using its money and influence to penetrate or buy academia. Decision-makers – from serving politicians to former political figures, senior government officials and the military – are, inevitably, key targets, the report concluded.
The parliamentarians appraised the UK Government damningly: while the Government told the Committee that its response to the threat is “robust” and “clear-eyed”. China experts were rather less complimentary, concluding that the Government has no strategy on China, let alone an effective one, and that it was singularly failing to deploy a ‘whole-of-Government’ approach. The report urged UK Government to adopt a longer-term planning cycle. The report also complained of the ‘unconscionable’ time it’s taking to reform the Official Secrets Acts, and more generally that ‘the Government has come late to the party and has a lot of catching up to do’.
As for academia (and think-tanks), the UK’s academic institutions provide a rich feeding ground for China to achieve political influence in the UK and economic advantage over the UK, according to the ISC. Academia is also an ‘easy option’ when it comes to theft of IP; and government departments not deciding who’s responsible means that ‘the ball is being dropped on security’.
The report also goes into critical national infrastructure, such as the new-build Hinkley Point C power station, and the tech firm Huawei, and says that ‘although Chinese involvement in, and control over, UK nuclear power stations is deeply concerning, it offers only a small snapshot of the attempt to gain control over a range of sectors, and technologies, by an increasingly assertive China’, which has a ‘joined-up approach’.
For the full 207-page report visit https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ISC-China.pdf.
