Four lessons from Covid-19 that should have put us on high alert about China.
This week, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden made a statement to the House of Commons about China’s cyber attacks on the UK. More specifically, China state-affiliated organisation APT31 maliciously targeted the Electoral Commission between 2021 and 2022 and attempted cyber reconnaissance activity against UK parliamentary accounts in 2021.
Why have we been so complacent about China for so long? The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament’s report on China is more far more robust on the threat posed to the UK than Dowden’s mewings this week. The Chinese State wants the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to remain in power indefinitely and for the country to become the dominant global technological and economic superpower, on which we will be increasingly reliant. And to these ends, it maintains the largest state intelligence apparatus in the world.
Aside from vexatious cyber attacks, we don’t have to look back very far to understand how catastrophic China’s influence might already have been for our country. On the fourth anniversary of lockdown in the UK, here are four Covid-related reasons we should already have been on high alert about China.
The first video footage of ‘Covid’ - prank or psyop?