Last week, my husband and I flew to Hong Kong with actual pleasure to see my household and meet our new child grandson for the primary time. Welcoming a member of the family is a valuable second and this was going to be a particular journey. However what would have change into an unimaginable reminiscence – seeing our grandson for the primary time – was snatched from us earlier than we reached the bags carousel.
Arriving at passport management, all appeared effectively. I handed my passport to a well mannered immigration official who put it into the pc system, after which paused. At this level I realised that one thing had been flagged up.
After being led off to a room for questioning, I used to be interviewed and my baggage was completely searched. After three hours I used to be merely advised that I used to be denied entry, and was bundled on to the following flight again to London. My passport was solely returned after I landed within the UK and left the aircraft.
All through all this, I felt two overriding feelings: anguish, at not having the ability to see my household and meet my grandson; and confusion. At no level was I advised why I used to be being deported. With out a passable reply from the Chinese language authorities – which has merely affirmed that “the Hong Kong SAR [special administrative region] authorities has the authority to deal with particular person instances of entry” – I need to draw my very own conclusions. Essentially the most alarming is that I used to be denied entry due to my position as a British parliamentarian, and one who has levelled criticism at Beijing for its human rights abuses.
I don’t draw back from championing democracy and civil liberty. They’re values that I maintain expensive, and which have formed my life. I’ll always remember dancing with pals on the Berlin Wall because it – along with the dictatorship that constructed it – crumbled. They’re values, although, which are underneath rising risk. The optimism of the Nineties has been changed by a belated recognition: that we should renew and shield our values within the face of a brand new, rising tide of authoritarianism.
Final Thursday I noticed a sliver of that newly emboldened authoritarianism. It’s opaque and impenetrable, and it doesn’t provide explanations. Its instruments are intimidation and obfuscation. The implications for the UK are stark. We have to be clear-eyed concerning the threats posed by the Chinese language authorities – and we should take motion to mitigate these threats.
Ministers shouldn’t merely settle for this lack of transparency as the price of doing enterprise. We have to be direct: if you’ll not be straight and don’t reply legit questions we can’t have interaction with you on the premise of mutual belief. That’s why, till we get a transparent reply on why I used to be deported, no authorities minister must be visiting China on official enterprise.
We should additionally handle the dangers posed to us at residence. This could start with the federal government taking fast steps to stop the additional enlargement of China’s safety equipment within the UK by, as soon as and for all, blocking proposals for a new Chinese language “tremendous embassy”. It appears apparent {that a} base for potential “spy dungeons” ought to not be constructed on the positioning of the previous Royal Mint, on the Metropolis’s doorstep – however this authorities has inexplicably refused to rule it out.
The disaster over the Scunthorpe steelworks also needs to increase contemporary issues concerning the position of Chinese language pursuits in our nationwide infrastructure. The choice by British Metal’s house owners, Jingye, to flip down the federal government’s £500m provide to help the plant’s future precipitated the close to collapse of the UK’s virgin metal manufacturing final week. We can’t discover ourselves in an analogous place once more: scrambling to avoid wasting an important home trade that has been left to battle by firms based mostly in overseas international locations which don’t share our pursuits or beliefs.
This provides urgency to Liberal Democrat proposals for an audit of UK-based belongings owned by firms or officers from international locations listed as Overseas Workplace human rights priorities, together with China. The federal government ought to embody a dedication to this in its personal UK-China audit – the publication of which, initially anticipated early this yr, ought to now be accomplished urgently as we face new geopolitical uncertainties.
Our response to the Trump administration’s unreliability mustn’t be to throw ourselves into the arms of authoritarian states like China. We should proceed to face up for our values and pursuits. If the federal government refuses to face tall now, when will it?
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