British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed his “deep concern” to his Chinese counterpart on Sunday about “Chinese interference in Britain’s parliamentary democracy” after revelations of an arrest on espionage charges, a Downing Street spokesman said.
According to the “Sunday Times”, in March, British authorities arrested two parliament employees accused of violating the Official Secrets Act of 1911 – one in the Oxford area in southeastern England, and the other in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland – on charges of violating the Official Secrets Act of 1911. Spying for China. The two men were released on bail.
A British Parliament employee was arrested on March 13, along with another man. The alleged spy is an advisor to the British Parliament, about 20 years old, who has worked in international politics, especially relations with Beijing, and has worked in China.
In the United Kingdom, he made contact with representatives of the Conservative Party, which is currently in power. They included Security Minister Tom Tugendhat and Alicia Cairns, chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, the lower house of Parliament. The case is being investigated by agents from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Sources in the British Parliament told the newspaper that this was a “major escalation” by China and that such a situation had never been seen “before.” On the sidelines of the G20 summit, British Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said that the China issue represents an “era-defining” challenge.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance for China, which includes dozens of representatives from several countries, said it was “shocked by the news of the infiltration of a person claiming to be acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China into the United Kingdom Parliament.”
In July, the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee warned in a report that Chinese intelligence was interfering “intensively and aggressively” in UK affairs. The document stressed that China had managed to “successfully penetrate all sectors of the British economy” and that “it is not difficult to detect” Chinese government interference in various sectors, from universities to nuclear energy.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in turn, stressed respect for the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other countries.
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