South Holland and the Deepings MP Sir John Hayes says ‘the Chinese state poses an immense threat to Britain’ in his column

It’s time to dispense with diplomatic deception: the Chinese state poses an immense threat to Britain. It’s not a challenge, a conundrum, nor a dilemma, communist China is a danger, writes MP Sir John Hayes in his regular column.

This truth was laid bare in the Intelligence and Security Committee’s 2023 report on China – the most comprehensive investigation undertaken on the subject in recent years. Across 222 pages, it exposed how Chinese espionage has targeted every level of British life: our universities, boardrooms, and even the corridors of Whitehall.

The committee, of which I am honoured to be a member, concluded that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operates at scale, with alarming sophistication and audacity. Beijing’s campaign, far from being fragmented, is holistic – a fusion of espionage, economic coercion, and political manipulation. Working on that report convinced me that China’s ‘whole state’ approach makes no distinction between state and enterprise, diplomacy and deception. Every instrument of national power is bent towards one goal: Chinese global dominance.

Yet despite such evidence, Britain’s response remains inadequate. The collapse of the China spy case involving two men – one of whom worked in Parliament(!) – accused of passing sensitive information to Beijing, is the latest example of the British liberal political establishment’s weakness. Despite years of work by the security services, the case disintegrated. It is clear that the Director-General of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, wanted the case to go to trial. Making little effort to hide his frustration, he warned that China poses a national security threat “every day”, going on to reveal that just last week MI5 disrupted yet another Beijing-linked espionage operation.

What’s worse is that the Government’s failure to act is not an anomaly, but a pattern.

When Britain fails to prosecute those suspected of aiding a hostile power, it projects weakness; when officials shrink from calling China a threat, it reveals timidity and when Beijing responds to legitimate scrutiny by warning that relations will “suffer,” too many in government bow instead of standing tall.

That is why the Intelligence and Security Committee will now investigate the collapse of this case. Unlike any other parliamentary body, the ISC holds statutory authority to demand access to top secret intelligence, to summon ministers and senior officials, and to hold the agencies themselves to account. Our committee will uncover why and how this failure occurred.

Trade and investment matter; but never at the expense of security. An appetite for imported Chinese goods must not permit their ruthless Government to swallow up still more of Britain’s economy. The ISC earlier report made clear that the CCP exploits our openness, targeting our technology, our intellectual property, and our universities. To protect ourselves is not paranoia; it is prudence.

Britain must no longer indulge the illusion that China is a positive partner. Instead, Chinese interference must be met with a patriotic resistance fiercer than the determination of those that threaten us. Re-investing in domestic manufacturing to make more of what we consume and protecting our businesses from unfair foreign competition will mean less dependence on regimes that neither share our values nor care for our interests.

If Britain is to honour its sovereignty, we must rediscover the courage to put security before cheap imports and integrity before hollow convenience. In dealing with the Chinese threat, the time for half-measures is over. Britain’s interests must never again be compromised.