Sunak promises to get tough on China if he becomes PM
Rishi Sunak on Sunday promised to get tough on China if he becomes Britain’s next prime minister, calling the Asian superpower the “number one threat” to domestic and global security.
The former finance minister’s pledge comes after his rival in the final two of the race to lead the ruling Conservative party, Liz Truss, accused him of being weak on China and Russia.
China’s state- run Global Times has previously said Sunak was the only candidate in the contest with “a clear and pragmatic view on developing UK-China ties”.
The Daily Mail, which has come out for foreign secretary Truss in the race to succeed Boris Johnson, called that “the endorsement that nobody wanted”.
Sunak’s proposals include the closure of all 30 Confucius Institutes in Britain, preventing the soft-power spread of Chinese influence through culture and language programmes.
He also promised to “kick the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) out of our universities” by forcing higher education establishments to disclose foreign funding of more than $60,000 and reviewing research partnerships.
Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 would be used to help combat Chinese espionage, and he would look to build “Nato-style” international cooperation to tackle Chinese threats in cyberspace.
China’s foreign ministry said in response that UK politicians should not “talk about China at every turn and make irresponsible remarks such as the so-called ‘China threat theory’, which cannot solve their problems”.
Sunak claimed China was “stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities” and “propping up” Vladimir Putin abroad by buying Russian oil, as well as attempting to bully neighbours, including Taiwan.
He hit out at China’s global “belt and road” scheme for “saddling developing countries with insurmountable debt”.
“They torture, detain and indoctrinate their own people, including in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, in contravention of their human rights. And they have continually rigged the global economy in their favour by suppressing their currency.”