Ministers vowed to ‘stand up for British values and security’ today after China threatened ‘consequences’ if Huawei is barred from involvement in the 5G network.
The government is set to U-turn on allowing the firm a role in the huge project after intelligence agencies warned US sanctions had raised doubts about security.
Conservative MPs are now pushing for the company’s technology to be removed from telecoms infrastructure altogether by 2024.
And they have broadened their demands to cover China’s involvement in other core parts of the economy, including nuclear plants. However, former chancellor Philip Hammond has voiced alarm about an ‘alarming’ outbreak of ‘anti-China sentiment’ in the Tory party.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma confirmed this morning that wider ties with Beijing are being kept under review, with the nuclear projects on the table.
But he played down fears over the mounting tensions, insisting: ‘I don’t think there is any inconsistency in welcoming inward investment and at the same time standing up for the UK’s values and interests and our security.’
The government is set to U-turn on allowing Huawei a role in the 5G project after intelligence agencies warned US sanctions had raised doubts about security
Former chancellor Philip Hammond (left) has voiced alarm about an ‘alarming’ outbreak of ‘anti-China sentiment’ in the Tory party. Business Secretary Alok Sharma (right) played down fears over the mounting tensions with Beijing this morning
China warned of ‘consequences’ and accused the UK of bowing to US pressure yesterday amid signs Huawei will be dropped from 5G.
Beijing’s ambassador Liu Xiaoming said shutting out the company due to the US imposing sanctions would show Britain no longer has an ‘independent’ policy.
He insisted the UK will have to pay more for the crucial telecoms technology if it shuns Huawei, and added: ‘You cannot have a golden era if you treat us as an enemy.’
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said he had received the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) assessment, and the US decision to levy sanctions on Huawei would have a ‘significant impact’ on its reliability.
Although no final decisions have been taken, expectations are rising that ministers will announce proposals this month to strip out the company’s kit from the wider UK telecoms network by 2029.
However, dozens of Conservative MPs want the government to go further and complete the process by the end of this parliament in 2024.
State-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) has invested billions of pounds in the Hinkley Point C plant, under construction in Somerset.
The firm is also seeking approval to build a nuclear reactor at Bradwell in Essex.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether the Government would be reviewing China’s investment in UK nuclear power, Mr Sharma said: ‘We will be looking at all of this in the round.
‘The key thing I just want to say is … we will look at all investments that are made in the UK, we will look at that against the criteria we have set out in the Enterprise Act, that will be set out in the National Security Investment Bill, and that will be for all investments that are made rather than picking and choosing individual countries.’
On the fate of Huawei, Mr Sharma said: ‘I don’t want to go into the details of a particular country but you will know that, as a result of the initial sanctions that the US has put in place against Huawei specifically, we are having a look to see what the impact would be on UK networks.
‘There is a process ongoing, we will see what that review comes to and we will set out our next steps.’
Mr Hammond said the UK should not be distancing itself from China while ‘loosening ties’ with Europe.
Beijing’s ambassador Liu Xiaoming (file picture) said shutting out the company due to the US imposing sanctions would show Britain no longer has an ‘independent’ policy
He told Today: ‘Right now, the UK is in the process of loosening its ties with trade partners in Europe in the name of expanding its global reach.
‘It seems to me this is not a time to be wanting to weaken our trade links with the world’s second largest economy.
‘We have to find a way, and I think we have done it in the past with many countries, of continuing to trade, continuing to invest and welcome investment from countries with which we have frank disagreements about political issues.’
The ex-foreign secretary said he is ‘concerned about the outbreak of anti-Chinese sentiment within the Conservative Party’ and called its rise ‘alarming’.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, told The Times he supported ‘a campaign for zero’ participation by Chinese companies in critical UK energy infrastructure.
‘We’ve got to rethink our whole energy strategy now. We don’t need them to come and build thundering great energy plants,’ he said.
‘China right now is not a diplomatic country with a tolerance of fair, reason-able sense of justice. They are an unreasonable government hell-bent on domination,’ Sir Iain added.
Tory MP Bob Seely added: ‘We cannot have China in our critical national infrastructure.’
Trump dirty dossier spy reveals how China ‘targets British VIPs’: Former MI6 spy Christopher Steele accuses Beijing of grooming UK establishment figures to be ‘full-time agents’ or ‘useful idiots’
The diplomatic war over Huawei took an extraordinary twist last night after a controversial dossier accused China of trying to manipulate key Establishment figures in the UK.
Entitled China’s Elite Capture, the 86-page report details an alleged campaign by Beijing to persuade influential individuals to back Huawei and its strategic aims.
Among a string of incendiary claims, the dossier described the Chinese telecoms firm as ‘Beijing’s strategic asset’ and cited fears it could be used for state spying. It said politicians, academics and other ‘elites’ in the UK had been targeted by China in an attempt to secure their support for Huawei’s integration into Britain’s technology infrastructure.
China’s Elite Capture was compiled with the help of former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, among others. Mr Steele is known for his role in drawing up a ‘dirty dossier’ about Russia and Donald Trump.
The British figures targeted, the dossier claims, included Sir Kenneth Olisa, the Lord Lieutenant of London, pictured above with the Duchess of Cambridge
The latest dossier names several prominent individuals it alleged had been targeted as part of the pro-Huawei campaign, claiming the aim had been to make them China’s ‘useful idiots’. Last night, those identified in the report issued statements strenuously denying the claims, dismissing them as ‘bizarre’ and like a ‘conspiracy theory’. Huawei categorically dismissed the dossier, saying its findings had ‘no basis in fact’.
Ex-MI6 man behind ‘dirty dossier’ on Donald Trump
The bold claim is reportedly made in a dossier made in part by the firm co-founded by ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele
Former British spy Christopher Steele was behind the Donald Trump ‘dirty dossier’ which alleged he had cosied up to Russian president Vladimir Putin and cavorted with prostitutes.
The US President, who was President-elect when the dossier came out in January 2017, dismissed the report as ‘false and fictitious’.
Mr Steele, 56, left MI6 in 2009 before setting up private firm Orbis Business Intelligence, which has contributed to the Huawei report.
He was once MI6’s top spy on Russian affairs and lived in the shadows until being unmasked as the author of the Trump dossier. Mr Steele joined MI6 after graduating from Cambridge where he was described as a ‘confirmed socialist’.
As a young intelligence officer in Moscow, he was frequently harassed by the KGB. He went on to become head of MI6’s Russia desk – meaning he was one of the Secret Intelligence Service’s most senior spies.
When Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in London in 2006, the then head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, turned to Mr Steele, who handled the case with ‘expert professionalism’, it was said.
Mr Steele concluded that Mr Litvinenko had been poisoned in a Kremlin-sponsored ‘hit’.
Mr Steele co-founded Orbis Business Intelligence with another former MI6 officer, Christopher Burrows.
It has earned huge sums over the years and was instrumental in exposing corruption at world football body Fifa.
But it was Mr Steele’s gold-plated contacts in Moscow that led wealthy opponents of Mr Trump to the door of Orbis’s discreet Belgravia office.
They commissioned him to research Mr Trump’s dealings in Russia. The sensational results included claims that the Kremlin kept a blackmail file on the President-elect which was said to contain a video of Mr Trump with Moscow prostitutes who are engaging in a ‘sexually perverted’ act.
Mr Steele was born in 1964 in Aden – his father was in the military – and grew up in Surrey before attending Girton College, Cambridge. He was president of the Cambridge Union debating society in 1986 – the same year Boris Johnson was president of the Oxford Union.
Contemporaries recalled an ‘avowedly Left-wing student’.
In 2017, Mr Trump lashed out during a press conference and called the dossier ‘fake news’.
The telecoms giant also said the report – which was commissioned and funded by an American-Scottish film producer who has spoken out against the firm – was part of a US attempt to discredit it.
The dossier’s extraordinary claims are likely to intensify the diplomatic row over Huawei, which presents a serious threat to Britain-China relations.
China’s ambassador to Britain warned that trade between the two countries could be at risk if the Government changed its mind about Huawei’s involvement in the 5G network.
Boris Johnson is thought to be on the brink of a change of heart on the issue amid concerns about Huawei from British security officials. At the same time, a powerful alliance of at least 60 Tory MPs, including a string of former ministers, is threatening to vote down any attempt to allow Huawei into the system.
The dossier also alleged: ‘The origins of China’s elite capture of the UK come from the David Cameron era: George Osborne, Cameron’s finance minister, spearheaded a drive to encourage Chinese investment into the UK and minimise any UK criticism of China’s human rights record.’
The dossier, seen by the Daily Mail, is not being formally published, and does not contain corroborating evidence of some of its claims. It allegations include:
Politicians, academics, and other ‘elites’ were targeted by the Chinese Communist Party with the intention of making them either ‘useful idiots’ or ‘full-time agents’;
A covert ‘manipulation’ campaign was co-ordinated by Chinese authorities on the ‘dark web’ for more than two years;
Britain’s spies fear a cell set up in the UK to monitor Huawei will not prevent the Chinese from spying on communications;
There is evidence that a ‘state actor’ sought to hack the cell’s activities by offering up £600,000 to ‘guns for hire’ on the dark web.
Huawei is ‘closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party and is instrumental in its plans to gain a greater say in global affairs’;
China’s ‘main objectives’ are to establish a presence in the UK’s critical national infrastructure, including power – such as the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point – and telecoms with Huawei.
There is growing hostility on the Tory benches towards China. As well as the Huawei controversy, MPs are pushing ministers to take a robust stand against Beijing over both Hong Kong and China’s apparent attempt to cover up the initial coronavirus epidemic.
Ministers are privately thought to accept that Beijing’s increasingly aggressive global stance – and Tory antipathy to it – means that the ‘Golden Age’ of relations trumpeted by Mr Cameron is all but over. Mr Steele and former diplomat Arthur Snell, both of Orbis Business Intelligence, contributed to the new dossier, which alleges Huawei is a ‘front for Chinese intelligence’ and part of its ambitions is to establish a presence in Britain’s critical infrastructure.
A covert influence campaign allegedly included Truman Show-style fake radio shows, which were invented to persuade participants to support the firm, along with phishing emails and other techniques. The report – which also includes input from an ex-government official – claims the campaign was run on behalf of Huawei.
The British figures targeted, the dossier claims, included Sir Kenneth Olisa, the Lord Lieutenant of London, and Sir Mike Rake, the former chairman of BT – both now on its non-executive UK board.
The report alleges that Lord Clement Jones, a Lib Dem peer and spokesman for the digital economy and former Huawei adviser, and Dr Sarah Wollaston, then chairman of the liaison committee – which is made up of the chairmen of the 32 Commons select committees – were also allegedly singled out. John Suffolk, the former Government chief information officer turned Huawei’s head of global security, was another named by the report.
However, last night four of those five figures all strenuously denied the claims. The other, Dr Wollaston, said she was not aware of any emails and in any event did not have any relationship with Huawei, nor would she.
There was no supporting evidence to back the claims up in the report and Huawei also denied all the allegations. A spokesman said: ‘We categorically refute these unfounded allegations, which do not bear scrutiny and are regrettably the latest in the long-running US campaign against Huawei.
‘They are designed to deliver maximum reputational damage to our business and have no basis in fact.’
Other sections of the dossier cast doubt on UK claims that the security risks of Huawei can be mitigated. The dossier claims that Britain’s spies fear that a ‘cell’ set up here to monitor the work of Huawei cannot prevent the Chinese from spying on communications.