China will 'hate' British for their response to Chinese cyber attack | Chris Patten

um but I think what

will

debate what

will

upset Beijing is the fact that this has been made public and that we are working with other like-minded countries to denounce it and point out what is happening that the Chinese

hate

,

hate

, um . Any of that happens, so I think the first step is that we have pointed out what everyone has known for a long time and we have done it publicly, what we then do about it in terms of sanctions and so on, is another question and , as One of the interrogators made a point of speaking to Oliver Dowon.

I think in relation to Hong Kong, the US government has sanctioned 20 people. I don't think anyone has been sanctioned by the UK, while ministers, the Deputy Prime Minister, I've been saying that's welcome, it's taken a very long time. I mean, last year, the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee outlined the ways in which China was threatening our interests in all sorts of ways, including influence in academia. and in technology, but also in other aspects. The heads of MI5 and MI6 said exactly the same thing and at the time the House of Commons foreign affairs committee said the government had prepared a strategy paper for dealing with China, but they were not ready. to show it to anyone on the outside, I think No 10 and the Foreign Office were very nervous about saying anything that might upset the Chinese and I think for some time there has been a feeling in parts of the government that the only thing that you can't What we do is call out the Chinese government when they behave badly, so we've treated them in a very different way, uh uh gently, than other people.

I think it's a start that we have started to say what everyone knows. This is the case for years. Is China a threat? The Chinese Communist Party is a threat and has truly defined itself as such since the moment Xi Jinping came to power and urged party and government leaders when called upon to compromise. in what was described as an intense struggle and then they described all the characteristics that you and I would recognize as aspects of an open society of a liberal democracy, not just elections and freedom of speech and the rule of law, but all those things associated with how civil society and they said at the time that those things were an existential threat to the control of the Chinese Communist Party and they said that there had to be a fight against them, which in my book suggested that they were a threat to us and they have behaved like that since then, but I think what we will debate and what will upset Beijing is the fact that this has been made public and that we are working with other like-minded countries to denounce it and point out what is happening and The Chinese hate, hate, for all of that to happen, so I think the first step is that we have pointed out what everyone has known for a long time and we have done it publicly, what we then do about it in terms of sanctions, etc.

It's another matter and as one of the interrogators made a point of speaking to Oliver Dowon, I think in relation to Hong Kong, the US government has sanctioned 20 people. I don't think anyone has been sanctioned by the UK. Good book by Steve Chang, who may not have done it, and I'm putting this very mildly, and has always been treated as well by employers in this country as he should be, but now he's very good at Oxford and now he's brilliant at So , where he's a professor, um, but I think he's gotten used to some of the um uh swaying, stooping and weaving of academic authorities nervous about um uh upsetting the Chinese, as he pointed out in a new book called Political Thought.

Xi Jinping's, um, exactly what are his views, he thinks there should be a head of the Communist Party, which is himself, so he has eliminated the collective leadership that Dung Shaing had tried to introduce and thirdly , has no idea about a new world order, hates the one that exists right now, but thinks what should happen is that the rest of the world should give the Mandate of Heaven to China and just let it follow China and let him do what he wants. wants now that's not in our interest, it's probably not in the interest of the Chinese people, but it's certainly what Absol has explicitly advocated for, so I think we have to recognize that he is, you know, he could have been innocent taking a drink of beer. with him in a pub near Checkers a few years ago, but he's certainly not someone you'd want to have a few glasses and a beer with now.

I mean, what should Britain do about this threat? And I'm taking Russia and others into account here. other state actors, as well as everyone else, what should Britain do if she is not doing well? I think there are two things, firstly, we have to make sure that our security arrangements are as adequately funded as possible, and that is security. The agreements differ on whether you're talking about armaments in relation to Russia in particular, but also armaments, but also

cyber

security measures in relation to the Chinese. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that economic progress and change in China is actually stagnation right now will suddenly produce parliamentary democracy when China joined the World Trade Organization Tony Blair said that was not the smartest thing he has ever said: that China's push toward parliamentary democracy was now unstoppable.

What we have to do, I think, is first of all to recognize that you don't have to follow China's political narrative to do business with China and, anyway, China with us, for example, has a substantial trade margin at its disposal. favor. Secondly, I think you also have to be. absolutely explicit when China breaks its word with international agreements as it did with us with the joint declaration with Hong Kong and with international health regulations because of course it still confuses how the Corona virus started and there are serious arguments about the extent to which um, the alak came from a Chinese lab, so you have to do those things and I think you also have to make sure that you don't become too dependent on precious metals, technology or other goods that are important from China. and you have to be especially cautious with anything that could be used for

cyber

attack

s, hacking, surveillance or

attack

s on our important infrastructure, so you have to do all of those things and I think the more open you are in doing that the safer you are against threats from China, we would not consider it as an inhibition to deal with anyone else, of course, China is important with 1.4 billion people or so, the fact that the economy in China is stumbling, is not our concern interest more than China and that should really worry us, but we shouldn't have to think that to, for example, sell any product to China, you have to do it. accepting

their

position on the thaw and Taiwan is an example of how wrong they are about the international order because Taiwan is a democratic state, it has the rule of law, it has freedom of speech, um, it's Chinese and in a sense it's a Confucian society.

There is no contradiction between being a confused Chinese society and believing in democracy.