Day by day, China is slowly chipping away at our social fabric - and if we fail ... trends now
China is engaged in a hidden war against the West. For the most part, this battle goes on in secret. But every so often, the aggressors are exposed.
As the Mail reported yesterday, it has emerged that Beijing hacked into the Ministry of Defence's payroll system.
An estimated 270,000 records belonging to nearly all members of Britain's armed forces were exposed in the breach. I was rung yesterday morning to be told my own details were among those assumed to be stolen.
But this appalling assault is just the latest of China's attacks.
The Government believes a Chinese state-hacker group stole vast amounts of data from the UK Electoral Commission between August 2021 and October 2022, one of the most significant information heists in history. They have conducted similar attacks in the U.S. to pilfer information on federal employees — a database that could be of immense value in a new Cold War, or a hot war.
Beijing was allegedly behind disinformation campaigns against the Princess of Wales amid previous speculation surrounding her health
Make no mistake: a hostile government sees the West's freedoms as a threat to its own existence and is determined to undermine our economies and democracies by stealth. The Chinese people, needless to say, are not the issue, but China's Communist masters are.
The extent of the regime's war on the West goes far beyond cyber attacks and espionage. Beijing is chipping away at our social fabric by using elements of our everyday lives — smartphones, electric cars, even our sports.
From disinformation campaigns against the Princess of Wales to the distribution of highly addictive and frequently lethal drugs, and from multi-billion-dollar 'trade dumping' — flooding foreign markets with cut-price goods — to the domination of the increasingly critical genome industry, we are under threat.
Readers will be aware that counterfeit postage stamps printed in China are flooding the British market. The manufacturers are selling sheets of first and second-class stamps, in batches of 20,000, for as little as £2 for 50 stamps.
The concepts of free speech and universal human rights have been denounced by President Xi Jinping
This is state-sponsored crime: because China is an autocracy, the ploy has almost certainly been approved at the highest level.
Needless to say, the Communists don't care about the British victims who had to pay a £5 penalty to collect their letters if a forged stamp had been used. The goal is simply to cause economic disruption.
This example of hostile economic policies is the tip of an iceberg that could sink countless British businesses and institutions. China has openly stated that it does not want to live in harmony with the West, but to dominate it. Western nations are viewed in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) literature as 'hostile foreign forces' intent on damaging Beijing.
Democracy is a 'false ideological trend'. In particular, independent journalism and any historical accounts not approved by the regime are not tolerated. The concepts of free speech and universal human rights have also been denounced by President Xi Jinping.
His regime is thinking many years ahead. Around the world his agents are working to secure dominance in precious minerals and 'rare earths', to help it control the tech industries of the future. China thinks long-term — but too often Western leaders, encumbered by those pesky elections, think short-term. Our own Government is beginning to see the threat, but there is more to do.
Britain belatedly kept China out of our 5G networks only after a concerted battle fought by me, together with MPs including Iain Duncan Smith and Tim Loughton. Now, Beijing is seeking to take over the critical field of 'cellular modules' — the vital components on computer circuit boards.
That is typical of their far-sighted but ruthless approach. Last year, the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) warned that China has penetrated every part of the UK economy in a 'whole of state' assault.
We still do not understand the breadth of this hidden war — and we need, above all, a coherent policy. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is doing more than any of his predecessors, but the challenge is one that we have never faced before.
There is also an insidious cultural element to their cyber aggression. There are credible allegations that Chinese 'troll farms' amplified poisonous online rumours about the Princess of Wales, prior to her announcement that she was being treated for cancer.
Meanwhile, Beijing has expanded its authoritarian state into the UK using 'Confucius Institutes', which provide Chinese-language teachers to UK classrooms to spy on students while its consulates and embassies house Chinese police stations. And take the wildly popular app TikTok. Put simply, inside China it is designed to make kids smart. Outside China, it is designed to make kids dumb.
For young people in China, its use is rationed each day and
its content is curated by the CCP, with science experiments and teachers being celebrated — totally unlike the drivel posted by 'influencers' in the West.
'The algorithm is vastly different, promoting science, educational and historical content in China while making our citizens in the West watch stupid dance videos, with the main goal of making us imbeciles,' Nicolas Chaillan, ex
U.S. Air Force and Space Force Chief Software Officer, said last year.
And it is not only cyber addiction that is coming out of China, but drug addiction, too.
Cars could be tracked or chaos, injuries and death caused if thousands of electric vehicles simultaneously ceased to be under the control of their drivers. China exports cheap models worldwide
Chinese suppliers to the U.S. are delivering the lethal and highly addictive opioid fentanyl in vast quantities for the illegal market. It is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 45, and China is also the primary source of its basic ingredients or 'precursor chemicals'.
Similar high-strength drugs called 'nitazenes' have been linked to at least 54 deaths in the UK in the six months to January. These, too, are imported from China.
The Chinese digital conglomerate Huawei — the company once involved in our 5G networks — is a perfect example of a company allegedly built on questionably acquired Western technology.
Its strategy is to resell its wares to the West at
