Interior Minister Yvette Cooper has been forced to protect Keir Starmer’s closeness to Chinese President Xi Jinping, even though the weekend spying dispute reiterated the risk to Beijing’s security.
Cooper insisted the Government would take “strong” action against any challenge to national security from China, but defended the desire to forge close economic ties.
Asked what her message is to the Chinese state following the diplomatic furore, Ms Cooper told the BBC: “We will continue to take a very strong approach to our national security, that includes to any challenge to our national security including to our economic security from China, from other countries around the world, that will always be the approach that we will take.
“Of course, with China we also want to make sure that this economic interaction and cooperation also exists. So it’s a complex agreement.
The row risks raising questions about the prime minister’s trial, which comes just a month after Sir Keir Starmer, the first leader to meet President Xi Jinping since 2018, amid a significant thaw in the relations between China and China. British.
READ MORE: Starmer warned he was making a ‘tragic mistake’ by bowing to China
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel warned the Government they must be in “no doubt that China represents a threat to the national security of our country”.
“As this spy affair in the center of Whitehall has shown, there is really extensive evidence that China is racing to undermine our values and the very values that underpin our country,” he said.
“It is in the public interest to know all the facts of the spies, their motivations and their political astuteness.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to China’s hostile incursions that have persisted for more than a decade and continue to shatter what is accepted as true between our two countries. »
China hawk and former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Express that Sir Keir’s meeting with President Xi raised considerations about the minister’s judgement.
He said it “also shows China how weak he is”, adding: “His re-invention of Osborne’s failed ‘golden era’ China policy is better named project Kow Tow.”
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Sir Iain claimed China sees Britain as the “weak point” in the Five Eyes security organisation, made up of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Rachel Reeves will fly to Beijing in January to resume the economic and monetary debate between the UK and China after a six-year hiatus, just days before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Nigel Farage has now threatened to reveal the “H6” call in the House of Commons this week, a parliamentary privilege to ensure there is no “establishment cover-up”.
Mr Farage argued: “The guy deserves to be named without delay, in a different way; this whole thing seems like a whitewash for the status quo.
“If it’s not resolved in the courts, he should be named in the Commons. It’s clearly in the national interest.”
Although parliamentarians have the legal right to use parliamentary privilege to avoid injunctions or legal repercussions, the president has warned in the past that he opposes its use, specifically on national security issues.
In September last year, Sir Lindsay Hoyle delivered a stern warning not to name a man at the heart of another Chinese spying scandal.
He argued the naming of the individual could prejudice future prosecutions.
He refused to repeat the same warning when approached via the Express.
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