The UK Government is considering issuing sanctions against China, after it was revealed actors in the country were responsible for hacking attempts on several MPs and the Electoral Commission.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is set to give a statement to the Commons on Monday accusing China of being responsible for a “malign attack” on UK institutions and setting out what measures could be issued in response.
It’s expected that the Government will announce it will look into sanctions against selected Chinese officials linked to human rights abuses in both Hong Kong and China’s Xinjiang province.
What do we know about China’s hacking attempts?
The UK has attributed a major hack of the UK’s electoral data, during which the personal data of tens of millions of voters were accessed, to China for the first time since the attack was revealed.
The Electoral Commission announced in August last year that it had identified a major breach of its system in October 2022, and that the hostile actors responsible had first accessed the systems in August 2021.
During the breach, attackers were able to access reference copies of the electoral registers which included the name and address of anyone in the UK who was registered to vote between 2014 and 2022, as well as the names of those registered as overseas voters and the commission’s internal email system.
Reports also emerged over the weekend that a group of MPs and peers known to be critical of China had been targetted in a series of cyber attacks originating from the country.
Those targeted include former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former minister Tim Loughton, SNP MP Stewart McDonald and crossbench peer Lord Alton of Liverpool, all of whom are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China which scrutinises the country.
i exclusively reported last August that Russian and Chinese attacks were also able to access internet-connected servers belonging to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in 2021, although the breach did not give them access to classified information.
A major data leak from a Chinese company in February also revealed evidence of large-scale attempts to hack government departments in the UK as well as other nations such as India, Thailand and South Korea.
How has the UK Government responded?
Mr Dowden is set to give a statement to MPs on Monday confirming that China was behind cyber attacks on the Electoral Commission and several parliamentarians.
It’s expected that he will also set out how the Government intends to respond to the incidents, with further sanctions against Chinese officials among the options.
Ahead of the statement, the three MPs and one peer known to have been targeted will meet with parliamentary security authorities to discuss the incidents.
The Sunday Times has reported that Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron is also likely to discuss security concerns around China when he appears before the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs on Wednesday afternoon.
Nuclear minister Andrew Bowie said on Monday morning that the UK will “stop at nothing” to protect Britons from cyber attacks ahead of the expected announcement of fresh sanctions against China.
“The fact is that this Government has invested a lot of time, money and effort in ensuring that our cybersecurity capabilities are at the place they need to be, we’ve increased the powers of our intelligence and security community to be able to deal with these threats,” he told LBC.
“And we will stop at nothing to ensure that the British people, our democracy, our freedom of speech and our way of life is defended.”
Mr Bowie added that the UK had a “grown-up, pragmatic relationship with China” when it come to investment in the country by Chinese firms.
What is the state of the UK’s relationship with China?
Lord Cameron, a former prime minister, has clashed with many hawkish MPs over what they perceive as his “softer stance” on China.
It came after internal documents seen by i suggested that the UK would be pausing any consideration of sanctions against Chinese firms accused of human rights abuses “indefinitely”.
Sir Iain, Cameron’s predecessor as party leader, criticised the approach in the Commons branding it a “terrible decision” while Foreign Affairs Select Committee Chair Alicia Kearns said the move would give these firms a “carte blanche to conduct repression and indeed be complicit in genocide”.
The UK has publicly criticised Beijing on its human rights record, but only four Chinese government officials and a Xinjiang security body have faced sanctions under the UK’s flagship Global Human Rights sanction regime since its inception in 2020, with none being handed down for the past three years.
Last August members of the Foreign Affairs Committee urged the Government to release an unclassified version of its China strategy, saying it would ensure “cross-Government coherence” and support “industries of critical national importance” when dealing with China.
But in a response published earlier this month, the Government rejected the committee’s request, saying it had “clearly set out its approach to China” in its refresh of foreign, defence, security and development policy last year.
Ms Kearns warned that “successive UK governments have been naive about the consequences of deepening our ties with China, particularly when it comes to co-operation on technologies and critical national infrastructure”.
“It is now evident that business with China comes with strings attached, even if they are not immediately apparent,” she added.
Ms Kearns added: “Policymakers need to understand the direction of travel when it comes to the UK’s future relationship with China, and UK businesses and public sector organisations need to know exactly where lines have been drawn.”
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