China 'trying to undermine our democracy' - MPs to be warned about new cyber attacks

China is “threatening to undermine our democracy” as MPs are set to be warned about a new wave of cyber attacks, a senior Conservative has claimed.

Sky News understands a small group of MPs and peers will be informed of recent attempts to infiltrate their “digital presence”, while the deputy prime minister will warn rank-and-file MPs that Beijing is responsible for the intrusions.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Alicia Kearns, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, called on the government to be more open about its strategy for neighboring countries.

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She said: “The government does have a strategy Chinabut this is a confidential level.

“So my question to the government, my challenge to them is how do businesses, civil society, the thousands of civil servants who don’t work at a classified level know what decisions they should be making so that they can serve our country Contribute safely.

“It’s not just governments that are responsible for national security – so we need to do more as attacks from China continue.”

She added: “My email was subject to a cyber attack from China.

“The threats are real and they are trying to undermine our democracy.

“If we don’t have a public strategy that can bring the country together, there will be gaps in our resilience that will make us vulnerable.”

Ms Kearns’ warning comes after the Sunday Times reported that parliamentary security chief Alison Giles will join former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative education secretary Tim Lawton, Liverpool Crossbench MP Lord Alton and Scottish National Party MP Stuart McDonald briefed on the situation.

They are both critics of the Chinese government and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a coalition of parliamentarians from around the world that investigates Beijing’s activities.

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Significant changes have taken place in UK-China relations

By Matthew Thompson, political reporter

Things shouldn’t be like this. As Parliament prepares for another day of ominous warnings about China’s malign influence, it’s worth briefly looking back to the halcyon days of 2015.

The then British Prime Minister George Osborne arrived in Beijing and promised to start a “golden decade” of Sino-British relations.

Not long after, British Prime Minister David Cameron had a beer with Xi Jinping in a British pub. This is a time of warm words and open doors. China has begun to play an important role in major British infrastructure projects such as 5G and nuclear power plants.

Fast forward less than a decade, however, and China has abandoned its involvement in 5G; MI5 has uncovered an alleged Chinese spy working in Parliament, and the Intelligence and Security Committee has warned that China is targeting the UK “significantly and aggressively”.

To be fair, the “golden decade” has lost some of its luster.

Tomorrow, we expect to hear that China is also conducting cyberattacks on sitting members of Congress. Lord Cameron, the current foreign secretary, will meet Conservative backbenchers to discuss their concerns on issues including China.

This is an amazing turnaround. Some accuse Cameron and his successors of being naive. Americans, in particular, warned of threats to Britain’s national security. A more charitable explanation is that it is worth trying to more closely integrate China with the liberal international order.

But the Chinese have a saying: “The mouth is filled with honey, and the stomach is filled with daggers.” It was originally used to describe the traitorous officials of the Tang Dynasty more than a thousand years ago. But its lessons perhaps should have been heeded sooner than that.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is applying to the Speaker’s Office for a statement to Parliament on China, and Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron will brief the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs on Monday evening .

This marks the latest development in Britain’s toughening stance on China.

Last year, a parliamentary staff member Arrested on suspicion of espionage for the stateIn 2022, the head of MI5 and his FBI counterpart warned that China was a “game-changing challenge”.

This is a far cry from the “golden era” announced by then Prime Minister Lord Cameron and Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping in 2015.

There are also concerns about the way Chinese tech companies like ByteDance are growing. Tik Tok or Huawei,Data processing.

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Ms Kearns added: “I should be clear, this is the Chinese Communist Party, this is not the Chinese people and this is not in their interests.

“The Chinese Communist Party seeks to achieve its goals and objectives at our expense, and the reality is that they will continue to try to make us vulnerable by making us dependent on them domestically, whether for data or technology.

“They will continue to try to exploit technology like TikTok to extract data, and they will continue to try to undermine us by buying off allies around the world and rewriting the multilateral system.”

CNN has contacted the Chinese Embassy for comment.