Beijing a ‘black vulture’, says ex-diplomat
A FORMER British diplomat yesterday revealed he had contributed to the controversial dossier on Huawei.
Charles Parton, who spent 13 years of his 37-year diplomatic career in China, made public his involvement in the report amid growing calls for the Chinese telecoms giant to be axed from Britain’s 5G network.
Yesterday, the Daily Mail revealed how the 86-page dossier – entitled ‘China’s Elite Capture’ – alleged that Beijing had tried to manipulate key UK establishment figures.
It identified a string of individuals, claiming they had been targeted in an attempt to persuade them to back Huawei and its strategic aims. The claims, however, were strenuously denied by those named in the report – and by the firm itself.
The report included contributions from ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier alleging links between Russia and Donald Trump, and former diplomat Arthur Snell. Both work for Orbis Business
Intelligence. And in an interview yesterday, Mr Parton, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), revealed he had also contributed.
Mr Parton said the UK needed to be ‘alert’ as to how Beijing interferes in Britain, warning that it was ‘deleterious’ to have Huawei in the UK’s 5G network. He said Britain needed to ‘weed out’ Chinese interference.
The ex-diplomat said: ‘Although I haven’t see the full report, I contributed to it because it is important to understand what the Chinese Communist Party is doing... If this Covid crisis has shown one thing, it’s that you cannot trust China not to use any power it has to pursue very aggressively its own aims, which may be against our interests.
‘I’d describe it as a black vulture sitting on policymakers’ shoulders.’
Tory MP Bob Seely said: ‘[The report] is significant because it shows there is a lot of in-the-shadows lobbying taking place.’
A Government spokesman said: ‘The Government’s approach to China remains cleareyed and rooted in our values and interests.
‘It’s always been the case that where we have concerns we raise them and where we need to intervene we will.’