China is Britain’s biggest long-term threat, Rishi Sunak will say on Monday as he unveils plans to curb the country’s soft power by closing its 30 Confucius Institutes, which promote the teaching of Chinese language and culture, in the Kingdom united
He will face Liz Truss, his rival in the Tory leadership race, effectively accusing the Foreign Secretary and Western leaders of “turning a blind eye to China’s nefarious activity and ambitions” and calling for the creation of a new NATO alliance. to counter it.
However, the latest front in the battle to replace Boris Johnson saw immediate recriminations from Truss’ supporters, with former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith suggesting the announcement amounted to hypocrisy, as during the two years that Sunak was chancellor, the Treasury “pushed hard for an economic deal with China”. Duncan Smith has been on China’s sanctions list since last year.
Sunak’s intervention threatens to further strain relations with Beijing, which have built substantially since the “golden era” just a decade ago. In a July 14 report, China’s nationalist Global Times newspaper said that while Beijing did not expect a radical change in the bilateral relationship under the new British leader, it still hoped the two sides could improve ties. He said Sunak had a “pragmatic vision of developing balanced ties with China”.
The current government has taken a tougher stance against Xi Jinping’s administration over its crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong, including a restrictive national security law and electoral reforms in the former British colony. Mutual sanctions have been established over China’s treatment of Uyghurs in its far western region of Xinjiang.
In an attempt to refocus the Tory leadership race on national security and international affairs, Sunak is expected to say on Monday that China “is the biggest long-term threat to Britain and the world’s economic and national security ”, citing the views of the Director General of MI5 and the head of the FBI.
“At home they are stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities,” the former chancellor will say. “And abroad, they are supporting Putin’s fascist invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil and trying to bully its neighbors, including Taiwan.”
Sunak will also criticize the Chinese government for “trapping developing countries with insurmountable debt and using it to seize their assets or put a diplomatic gun to their heads,” as well as torturing, detaining and indoctrinating its own citizens to Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
In a slight against Truss, Sunak will add: “Enough is enough. For too long politicians in Britain and the West have rolled out the red carpet and turned a blind eye to the nefarious activity and ambitions of China”.
It said it will ban China’s 30 Confucius Institutes in the UK, claiming Beijing’s soft power is bolstered by taxpayer-funded teaching of Mandarin in schools that is channeled through the organisations.
The controversial bodies have previously been criticized for influencing academic freedom in the UK, with campaigners calling them “outdated”. They are effectively joint ventures between a host university, an associate university in China and the China International Education Foundation (CIEF), an organization based in Beijing.
Sunak’s remarks about the Confucius Institute are likely to contrast with Truss, who oversaw the signing of a memorandum of understanding between education faculty at University College London and Hanban, an agency of the education ministry of China used to be a partner in the plan, when she was an education minister in 2014.
Other actions that Sunak said would reduce Chinese influence include ordering British universities to disclose any foreign funding partnerships worth more than £50,000 and reviewing all UK-China research partnerships that could “help without want” to the country’s attempt to dominate the technologies of the future or that there might be a military purpose.
A NATO-style alliance would also be established, Sunak promised, along with measures to influence international cyber security standards and help British companies and universities combat Chinese industrial espionage with the help of the ‘MI5.
Truss’s campaign said it had been clear Britain should not rely on China to build critical national infrastructure, including projects such as Sizewell C, and would update the “integrated review” of the strategy 10-year foreign affairs to include a chapter on Chinese and Russian. aggressiveness
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Ahead of the first live TV debate between the two candidates, Truss announced plans to focus on boosting free ports by scrapping Whitehall targets to let them choose their own favorite sectors and tailor incentives.
It also wants to introduce investment zones by creating new model towns similar to Bournville and Saltaire which will have fewer planning restrictions and lower tax burdens.
The Chinese Embassy in London and the CIEF in Beijing have been contacted for comment.