UK officials outraged at Beijing's coronavirus disinformation

FPI / March 30, 2020

When the coronavirus crisis is over, the British government should re-evaluate its relationship with China, including whether to continue to use Huawei for the UK's 5G infrastructure, government officials said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government is said to be furious over China's ongoing pandemic disinformation campaign.

“There has to be a reckoning when this is over,” a UK government official told the Daily Mail.

Other officials in Johnson’s government have said the UK's anger at China's mishandling of the coronavirus crisis “goes right to the top” of 10 Downing Street — the Prime Minister’s official residence. The anger stems in large part from propaganda spread by the communist regime in China which accuses a United States military delegation of starting the global pandemic in Wuhan.

“There is a disgusting disinformation campaign going on and it is unacceptable. They [the Chinese regime] know they have got this badly wrong and rather than owning it they are spreading lies,” a Downing Street source told the Daily Mail.

The re-evaluation of ties reportedly will include the status of Johnson’s decision to allow Chinese tech giant Huawei access to Britain’s 5G infrastructure.

"The Huawei deal placed a strain on the UK's 'special relationship' with the United States, which along with Australia has warned that the Chinese would gain back door access into the networks of Britain and her allies," Breitbart News reported on March 29.

“We can’t stand by and allow the Chinese state’s desire for secrecy to ruin the world’s economy and then come back like nothing has happened. We’re allowing companies like Huawei not just into our economy, but to be a crucial part of our infrastructure,” said a senior Cabinet member.

“This needs to be reviewed urgently, as does any strategically important infrastructure that relies on Chinese supply chains,” the source added.

Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said that “for too long, nations have lamely kow-towed to China in the desperate hope of winning trade deals. Once we get clear of this terrible pandemic, it is imperative that we all re-think that relationship and put it on a much more balanced and honest basis.”

British officials also believe that the regime of Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping is using the crisis to profiteer and to gain influence with countries through what the officials call “predatory offers of help”, such as the donation of medical equipment — which in some cases have turned out to be defective.

“Beijing is masking the greatest health emergency in a century and the cost of this deceit is global,” said Conservative Member of Parliament Tom Tugendhat.

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said that “China is acting as the charitable godfather, dishing out money, medical equipment and trying to use this crisis to gain global power.”

“When Germany refused to export medical masks to Italy, despite the desperate state they were in, guess who stepped in – the people who caused it – the Chinese,” Farage told Sky News. “And I wouldn’t want to see the idiots in Brussels replaced by Chinese communism dominating the world even more than it does today,” he cautioned.

Though any re-evaluation of the relationship with China has been put off until after the pandemic calms down, a senior official told the Daily Mail: “It is going to be back to the diplomatic drawing board after this. Re-think is an understatement.”

Free Press International