The UK’s approach to a “whole of state” assault by China on its economy, politics, civil infrastructure and academia is completely inadequate, an influential British parliamentary committee has found.
China’s state institutions were aggressively targeting the UK, the all-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said, and “without swift and decisive action” a nightmare scenario could emerge where China represented not just a commercial challenge, but an existential threat to liberal democratic systems.
The committee, which completed its inquiry into the Chinese threat in May, was scathing about the failure of the UK to wake up to the scale of the challenge.
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“We found that the level of resource dedicated to tackling the threat posed by China’s ‘whole of state’ approach has been completely inadequate, and the slow speed at which strategies and policies are developed and implemented leaves a lot to be desired,” the ISC said.
Until recently the UK government was willing to accept Chinese money with few questions asked, and “as a consequence the UK is now playing catch-up and the whole of government has its work cut out to understand and counter the threat from China,” the ISC said.
The failure to respond to the economic threat posed by China, and to put in place a way of protecting UK assets “is a serious failure and one that the UK may feel the consequences of for years to come,” the lawmakers found.
“There is no evidence that Whitehall policy departments have the necessary resources, expertise or knowledge of the threat to counter China’s approach,” the committee said.
The government’s focus, was still dominated by short-term or acute threats, the report said.
“It has consistently failed to think long term unlike China, which historically has been able to take advantage of this,” it said.
In a scathing assessment of British academia’s willingness to accept Chinese research grants, the report said that “while some have expressed concern others seem willing to turn a blind eye, happy simply to take the money.”
“Academia is an easy option when it comes to the theft of intellectual property with China taking advantage of collaborative projects to steal information which may be less protected,” it said, adding that “it is alarming there is still no single list of the areas of sensitive UK research which needs protecting.”
Finding that the west was generally overly reliant on Chinese technology, the report warned that “without swift and decisive action we are on a trajectory for a nightmare scenario where China steals blueprints, sets standards and builds products, exerting political and economic influence at every step. This presents a serious commercial challenge but also has the potential to pose an existential threat to liberal democratic systems.”
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