UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he raised his \u201cvery strong concerns\u201d to China\u2019s premier regarding potential Chinese interference in British democracy after a parliament employee was arrested on suspicion of spying for China. <\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists at the G20 summit in New Delhi on Sunday, Sunak said he used a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang to raise several concerns including over \u201cany interference in our parliamentary democracy.\u201d <\/p>\n
This comes after two men were arrested under the UK\u2019s Official Secrets Act amid reports that a parliamentary researcher with alleged links to senior Conservative Party politicians including security minister Tom Tugendhat was arrested on suspicion of spying for Beijing. <\/p>\n
UK newspaper, The Sunday Times broke the story on Sunday, reporting that the researcher was arrested alongside another man on March 13. <\/p>\n
According to a statement from London\u2019s Metropolitan Police, police arrested a man in his 30s in Oxfordshire, southern England, and a man in his 20s in Edinburgh, Scotland. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe investigation is being carried out by officers from the Met\u2019s Counter Terrorism Command, which has responsibility for investigations relating to allegations of Official Secrets Act and espionage-related offences,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n
After being brought to a police station in south London, the two men were released on police bail until a date in early October, according to the statement. <\/p>\n
China\u2019s embassy in London denied the spying accusations. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe claim that China is suspected of \u2018stealing British intelligence\u2019 is completely fabricated and nothing but malicious slander,\u201d a spokesperson said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe firmly oppose it and urge relevant parties in the UK to stop their anti-China political manipulation and stop putting on such self-staged political farce,\u201d the statement added. <\/p>\n
According to the Sunday Times reporting, the arrested parliamentary researcher was also linked to the chairperson of the British government\u2019s foreign affairs committee, Alicia Kearns. <\/p>\n
Posting on Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter, Kearns declined to comment on the alleged ties, remarking: \u201cWhile I recognise the public interest, we all have a duty to ensure any work of the authorities is not jeopardised.\u201d <\/p>\n
A cross party group focused on relations with China, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) said in a statement on Saturday on X that it was \u201cappalled at reports of the infiltration of the UK Parliament by someone allegedly acting on behalf of the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is for authorities to reveal the name of the person accused, and IPAC is united in hoping that justice is done expeditiously,\u201d the alliance continued. <\/p>\n\n
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he raised his \u201cvery strong concerns\u201d to China\u2019s premier regarding potential Chinese interference in British democracy after a parliament employee was arrested on suspicion of spying for China. Speaking to journalists at the G20 summit in New Delhi on Sunday, Sunak said he used a meeting with Chinese Premier <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}