Among other things, China is operating its own parallel “justice” system in the UK. It won’t stop until we make it stop
Who do they think they are? In the past three weeks, Beijing’s goons have beaten up a Hong Kong protester in Manchester and been shown to be operating at least two overseas “police stations” on British soil. According to the investigative NGO Safeguard Defenders, these are used to help track down and blackmail Chinese nationals into returning to China. In other words, Beijing is operating its own parallel “justice” system in the UK.
Sarah Jones, MP for the constituency in Croydon that is home to one of these police stations, related in Parliament this week how a business operating on the very same premises had even tried to lobby her. She had thought initially, she confessed, that the whole thing must be “some kind of hoax”.
Alas, it is not a hoax. I wish I could even say that Beijing’s disregard for territorial integrity was extraordinary, but it is in line with its usual behaviour abroad. Its agents have plundered our technology, corrupted our firms, bought our institutions, bullied those who have sought safety here, spied on and instrumentalised their own students in our universities and aired their propaganda unfiltered – all while Beijing itself benefits from our own connivance, assistance and training.
It has often done these things in an easily discoverable or entirely visible way. And it has suffered no adverse consequences. Far from it – Chinese money and “co-operation” have been welcomed, whether it involves hosting their military scientists in our laboratories, sending our air force pilots to train theirs, or having our police share tips with theirs on crowd control.