Parliament Probes UK Official About Possible China Sanctions, Israeli Arms Exports

Speaking during a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with U.K. Secretary of State David Cameron, several members of Parliament said the U.K. should be tougher on China. But Cameron said he’s confident in U.K. policies toward Beijing, adding that the government doesn’t have “any naivete on this.”

He said “a lot has changed” in China over the last decade, pointing to alleged Chinese human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang and its crackdown on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong. “We have had a China that is a lot more assertive and aggressive in lots of different ways,” he said.

The U.K. needs to continue pursuing policies that protect sensitive technologies, Cameron said, specifically pointing to its National Security and Investment Act -- the rules that make up the country’s foreign direct investment screening regime (see 2307180029). He also mentioned that “getting Huawei out of telecommunications equipment is important.”

“There may be other things we need to do,” Cameron said.

MP Graham Stringer suggested the country may be too slow in strengthening some of its trade restrictions. “You very fairly say that we need a tougher policy towards China,” Stringer told Cameron, former U.K. prime minister and current head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. “My impression of the department is that it is still operating to the old policy, rather than a new policy.”

Stringer said there “was an enormous amount of resistance” within the FCDO to “getting Huawei out of our system.” He also asked whether Cameron thinks the U.K. should be imposing Global Magnitsky human rights sanctions on Chinese officials that are “repressing democracy and imprisoning pro-democracy activists and trade unionists” in Hong Kong.

Cameron didn’t directly answer. He said the U.K. is trying to balance trade restrictions with diplomacy.

“I would say that the Department has a lot of people who understand China very deeply, and who want us to have a relationship that can bear a load, so that we can deal with things like climate change,” he said. “But there is no naivete” and “that is why the protect part of the policy is so important.”

MP Henry Smith asked whether the U.K. has considered placing export restrictions on BGI, the Chinese genomics firm. Smith pointed to the fact that the U.S. Commerce Department has placed several BGI affiliates on the Entity List (see 2007200026 and 2303020083), adding that the U.S. has “deemed it a military threat.”

Cameron said he isn’t sure whether the U.K. should impose similar restrictions. “I am very happy to go away and have a look at it,” he said.

Several members questioned Cameron about the government’s policies toward the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and asked whether the U.K. believes Israel’s attacks on Gaza may be violating international humanitarian law. Cameron said he has “seen lots of things that have been deeply concerning,” but “my job is not to make the legal adjudication.” But he did say the U.K. is considering financial sanctions against Israelis responsible for an increase in violence against Palestinian settlers in the West Bank.

He said the U.K. has announced travel bans on those responsible, and the U.S. has said it will also impose visa restrictions. But “we have the opportunity, should we judge it right, to move that from a travel ban up to a full sanction,” Cameron said. Asked what would trigger blocking sanctions, Cameron said: “if it gets worse, if more acts are carried out, we would consider taking the travel ban up to a full sanction.”

“There is no hesitation,” he said. “Our view is that this is not right, and we need to act. You should use your sanctions and deterrents in the smartest way that you can, and we are happy to do that.”

MP Alicia Kearns, chair of the committee, asked Cameron why there has “been no review, cessation, pause” of U.K. arms exports to Israel. She said there “should have been an automatic trigger that exists within the Department to immediately suspend [arms exports] when there is a significant change on the ground.”

Cameron said the U.K. assesses its arms export policies “on a rolling basis, so it is permanently reviewed.” When the “circumstances change and we reach a different view, we would advise the Department of Trade accordingly,” Cameron said.

But Kearns suggested the U.K. already should have paused weapons exports to the country, noting that it stopped similar exports to other countries after terrorist attacks. “The British government has a duty to ensure that its licenses for arms exports are as accurate as they can be,” she said. “So you are not aware of any review within the system formally?”

Cameron said that’s a decision for the U.K.’s Department of Trade, “based on advice from the Foreign Office, and that process is properly gone through.”

Kearns said she finds it “strange that when there were much lower levels of hostility and activity, you put in place one as prime minister.” But “this time round, despite the circumstances being so much more serious, there has not been a review.”