Commentary
The United Kingdom is one of America’s closest allies and one of our toughest when it comes to standing strong against dictatorships in Russia and China. Three years ago, the UK Parliament called repression against the Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region “
genocide.“ The British government at the time called it ”industrial-scale” human rights abuse.
All Western democracies should be on guard to ensure their moral clarity on China doesn’t diminish. Commercial interests in China are powerful enough, and the United Kingdom economically weakened after Brexit, that some in London politics respond to commercial interests linked to China, or delay measures that attempt to limit the influence of those China-linked commercial interests.
According to an Aug. 20 report, the UK’s
new Labour government stalled plans by the former Conservative administration to establish tough controls against adversary country influence operations through the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS). The proposed law was supposed to be implemented this year to require those acting on behalf of foreign regimes to declare themselves to the British government. Let’s hope that the government will come out and deny this report.
FIRS is similar to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, which was meant to identify paid propagandists for Germany. Their free speech is protected by the Constitution, but the FARA law requires that that speech be accompanied by an honest acknowledgment to the public that it is speech paid for by a foreign entity. The United Kingdom has never had such a law, but the rise of influence operations by Russia and China led to the proposal for FIRS and support for it by MI5, a British intelligence agency.
The UK government is now going slow on FIRS, according to a British media
report, by delaying its implementation until at least next year. The author notes that some British officials blamed the delay on “wrangling within the government, with the Treasury and the Foreign Office concerned about its impact on the economy and Britain’s diplomatic relations – for which read, they had a bout of cold feet on China.”
One has to also wonder if another factor for the delay is the
Russell Group of 24 leading universities in the United Kingdom opposing FIRS in part because it would hinder economic growth. The group wrote on X in 2023 thanking a Labour member of the House of Lords for his support. The post noted, “As currently drafted, FIRS will harm international collaboration & risk deterring global partners, which would hinder R&D-led growth. Government needs to pause and rethink.”
For now, the UK is also avoiding new tariffs on China’s
electric vehicles (EVs) that the United States, European Union, and Canada are imposing. These tariffs will protect auto industries in the United States, the United Kingdom, and allies. Yet the government persists in risking the UK auto industry to a flood of inexpensive EV imports from China. The Labour government could well sacrifice much of the UK auto industry if it seeks to ban the sale of new combustion engine vehicles by 2030, as is found in its election manifesto, while at the same time allowing untrammeled UK market access to Chinese EV manufacturers. In addition to meeting its emission goals, the government is likely concerned about retaliatory tariffs by Beijing, including against British luxury car exports to China. Luxury car makers in the United Kingdom are reportedly lobbying the government to go slow on any EV tariffs against China.
There have also been many high-ranking politicians who went on to pursue business interests involving China after they left office.
If even those who once held the highest national positions can be swayed by China’s commercial influence to the detriment of their homeland, we all have plenty of work to do in truing the world’s moral compass.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
