Britain Must Maintain Moral Clarity on the Chinese Regime

All Western democracies should be on guard to ensure that their moral clarity on China doesn’t diminish. Commercial interests in China are powerful enough, and the UK economically weakened enough 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.
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 requires that that speech be accompanied by an honest acknowledgment to the public that it is speech paid for by a foreign entity. The UK 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 post reads: “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.”
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 UK 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 trueing the world’s moral compass.