UK retaliates with sanctions against China for cyberattacks on lawmakers and voters

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Britain imposed sanctions on China after accusing state-backed hackers of carrying out two malicious cyberattacks involving a British election watchdog.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said the malicious attacks on lawmakers and the Electoral Commission, while hackers accessed the personal information of around 40 million voters, showed a clear and persistent pattern of behavior that signaled China's hostile intentions.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs now plans to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain what happened. Prime Minister Dowden insisted Britain would take swift and strong action against China for any actions that target Britain's democratic institutions and politicians.

But he stopped short of labeling the UK a threat, acknowledging that Britain will continue to work with China on issues such as trade and climate change when it is in our national interest. Former Cabinet Secretary David Lidington was leading a delegation to China last week to discuss relations with the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr Dowdens' statement comes after GCHQ identified a Chinese state-run hacking group as the culprit of a cyberattack that took place between 2021 and 2022 and provided the attackers with personal details of people registered to vote between 2014 and 2022. no see.

The Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that China would be subject to sanctions.

(PRU/AFP/Getty)

MPs calling for Rishi Sunak to use the statement as a watershed protest reacted to Mr Dowdens' response, while China hawk and former Conservative Party leader Sir Ian Duncan Smith described the statement as like an elephant giving birth to a mouse.

A day of international political stance:

Sir Iain compared Sunak's stance on China to Britain's appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s. Former immigration secretary Robert Jenrick said the government's response was weak and would only embolden China. Former home secretary Suella Braverman has called for China to be listed as a threat to British citizens. Security and Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron briefed Conservative MPs on the threat from China's Labor Party. Pat McFadden backed the government but demanded assurances the general election would be safe from hackers.

Mr Jenrick, who has criticized Britain's response to China and has been mentioned as a future Tory leadership contender, said the government clearly would not hold China to account for its attacks on our democracy.

Ms. Braverman, who is expected to run in the next leadership election, blasted the dangers posed by China, telling lawmakers: It is abundantly clear that China is a hostile nation and poses an unprecedented threat to our national security.

As the debate rages over the government's approach to Beijing, Sir Iain, who has repeatedly called on Mr Sunak to formally label China a threat rather than a groundbreaking systemic challenge, has even compared the government's current policy to Britain's pre-World War II policies. It was also compared to the policy of . War administration.

We need to become much stronger and stronger. The lesson we learned from the 1930s is that oil painting never works. He spoke about the issue at a press conference in Westminster.

Today’s announcement marks a watershed moment for the UK as it champions the values ​​of human rights and the international rules-based system on which we all rely.

British Chancellor Rishi Sunak said Britain would take steps to protect itself.

(PA wire)

Sir Chris Bryant, the former Labor secretary, told the House of Commons that Mr Dowden was not at all persuasive. If he thinks this is the sum total of attempts by all Chinese countries to collapse the British democratic system, he is willfully blind and therefore dangerous.

And SNP councilor Stewart Malcolm McDonald accused Mr Dowden of turning up at the scene of the shootout holding a wooden spoon. He says he has taken strong action. He has never sanctioned a single Chinese government official.

Chancellor Sunak has previously described Britain as the biggest state-based threat to our economic security, insisting the country was taking steps to protect itself from an increasingly assertive China.

Citing language used in the government's foreign policy review, he said: The current situation indicates that China is behaving in an increasingly assertive manner abroad and in an authoritarian manner at home, and this is the defining and greatest challenge of the era. State-based threats to our economic security.

Therefore, it is right for us to take steps to protect ourselves, and that is exactly what we are doing.

In a statement, Dowden told lawmakers that Britain was imposing sanctions on two people and a company linked to APT31, a cybergroup linked to China's Ministry of State Security.

The hack reportedly began in August 2021 but was not confirmed until October 2022.

Henry Smith, a senior Conservative member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance for China (Ipac), told The Independent the government should not be naive and must recognize the threat posed by China.

He responded to news of Chinese hacks targeting British lawmakers and election systems, saying this was sadly not surprising.

“I think we need to be much more serious when it comes to China,” he added. We have this dichotomy that they are a big part of the global market and we cannot ignore it, but at the same time the way they do not follow the international rules-based system is something that we have to be realistic about and take defensive action against. I'm against it, to be honest.

Whether hacking a member of parliament in the UK, abusing Uyghurs or democracy activists in Hong Kong, or threatening Taiwan, we need a much stronger response.

Clearly they are threatened by their actions. What more do they need to do before people admit it?

James Cleverly visited Beijing last year to promote Chinese investment in the UK.

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Former cabinet minister Simon Clark wrote on social media site Would you?

Conservative MP Bob Seely also called for a strong and consistent approach to China, saying the relationship was still too one-sided.

Downing Street insisted the government was keeping its eyes wide open on the China issue.

Asked why it was made public a year after the attack came to light, the Prime Minister's spokesman said the investigation was clearly complex and sensitive and we had been working closely with our international partners for some time to identify those responsible and hold them. account.

They also downplayed suggestions that the timing of the announcement was politically motivated.

Emily Taylor, a fellow researcher at Chatham House, was even more skeptical. She told The Independent that while the hack was a vivid example of the vulnerability of democratic institutions to cyberattacks, it was unclear whether it was a timely message encouraging electoral resilience or an attempt to reach out to China hardliners in the United States. I said it raises pertinent questions. That party.

Taylor also said the tensions inherent in the government's foreign policy led to a struggle to formulate a clear and consistent position on China between seeing China as an exciting opportunity for trade partnerships and inward investment and replacing it altogether. He said he did. Decision on Huawei and 5G after years of preconceptions.

Last October, Sir Cameron came under fire from some Conservative backbenchers for his soft approach to the Chinese regime after speaking at two investment events on China's global infrastructure strategy.

Sir Iain asked Sir Cameron to reconsider the position he took on the issue after Politico reported that the former prime minister flew to the Middle East in late September to speak at two events in the port city of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Labor has called for a new strategy to deal with foreign threats.

Jo Stevens, Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, said: We need a long-awaited new strategy to tackle threats to our country, and closer collaboration between the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to coordinate the UK's strategic response to this. You need this. Threats to domestic security and electoral freedom are growing.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems said it was outrageous that Sir Cameron was only planning to address the 1922 committee and not the House of Commons.

Foreign Office spokeswoman Lila Moran said: “It is outrageous that in the face of such a serious national security threat, only the Conservative Party’s inner circle, and not all members of parliament, have the opportunity to hear the Foreign Secretary and question him.”

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