Conservative Home: 'China is penetrating the UK economy at every level. Our response has been completely inadequate', Benedict Rogers

Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist and writer, Deputy Chair of the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission and author of “The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny”.

Ten days ago, the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said that China had penetrated “every sector” of the UK economy in a “whole of state” assault to which the Government’s response has been “completely inadequate”. Without swift, decisive action, we face a “nightmare scenario” where China could post “an existential threat” to liberal democracy, it concluded.

For seven years, I and others have said the same. Until recently, our voices were ignored, regarded as fringe nuisances compared to kowtowing to China’s business interests. But criticism of Beijing has become more mainstream, as Xi Jinping’s regime revealed its true nature.

The dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms and the transformation of one of Asia’s most open cities into one of the repressive police states, along with the growing evidence of a genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, not to mention cover-ups over the Covid-19 pandemic and sabre-rattling against Taiwan, have served to awaken minds.

A regime that issues arrest warrants and HK$ 1 million bounties for eight peaceful pro-democracy activists living in exile in the UK, the United States, and Australia is more a Mafioso cabal than a reliable partner. Even those who still pursue business with Beijing admit that doing so is a deal with the devil.

But some are still in denial. They should read the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission’s recent report on foreign prisoners and forced prison labour in China. Listen to the testimonies of two courageous men who served time in China’s prisons. They were not Chinese dissidents or religious practitioners. They were foreign businessmen in China. And their message is clear – even ordinary prisoners held for alleged common crimes in China are victims of human rights abuse.

Peter Humphrey, a British national who has spent 48 years working in China, was a  former Reuters foreign correspondent who founded a corporate due diligence consultancy and became a respected figure in the Chinese expatriate business community. Marius Balo, a Romanian teacher, and theologian, taught English in Beijing when he took up a part-time job with a Chinese finance company.

Both men saw their worlds upended when the Chinese police raided their homes and offices and arrested them for crimes they had not committed.

Humphrey ended up in Shanghai’s Qingpu jail for two years, with his Chinese-born wife – an American citizen – held in Shanghai Women’s Prison. Denied medical treatment for suspected prostate cancer, he was forced to give televised confessions from a cage, broadcast on China’s national and global State-run television channels. He later filed a complaint with Ofcom, which resulted in the regulator stripping China’s CGTN channel of its UK broadcasting license.

Balo spent eight years in jail, including the first two years in pre-trial detention in a 12-square-foot cage with about 12 other prisoners, none of whom spoke English. “I was never tortured physically – everything was psychological torture,” he told a Conservative Party Human Rights Committee hearing chaired by Tim Loughton MP in Westminster three weeks ago.

Each day began with being forced to watch other prisoners defecate in a hole in his cell – the only toilet – while listening to Party propaganda blaring out of the television above. “I could not contact anyone. I could never see daylight. When I went to court, they shoved a bag over my head,” he recalls.

Balo saw at least two other foreign prisoners die in prison from untreated cancer. “The Chinese prison system weaponises prisoners’ health,” Humphrey added. Both men witnessed and experienced forced prison labour. “China’s entire prison system holding many millions of prisons is in fact a gigantic, self-perpetuating commercial enterprise which brings profits to the state, income to the prison officers, and funds prison operations,” said Humphrey.

Prison campuses contain entire factories, according to both men, manufacturing and packaging goods for global multinational brands for the international market – including sports shoes, apparel, hardware, and electronic products. “Prison officers are employed as labour supervisors, marketing and sales managers, and they get bonuses for high production output,” adds Humphrey.

Balo was forced to package Tesco Christmas cards and produce gift bags for retail chains, while Humphrey witnessed items being produced for brands such as H&M, C&A, and 3M. Since his release, he has received reports of prison labour used in the production of pregnancy tests and personal protective equipment (PPE).

Crucially, there is no such thing as a fair trial in China. According to Humphrey, “police do not conduct investigations with any real detective work or forensic procedures”. Instead, confessions are extracted through brutal interrogations, witnesses are coerced, no contradictory evidence is permitted and there is no cross-examination of witnesses in court.

Prosecution witnesses are not required to appear in person in court, no defence witnesses are called and defence evidence is not presented. As a result, says Humphrey, 99.9 per cent of prosecutions in China result in convictions and sentences, and 99.9 per cent of appeals are rejected. “Not a single prisoner has had a fair and transparent trial. Not a single one,” he told a packed room in the House of Commons.

Among foreigners who have been jailed in China, Humphrey and Balo are the first to tell their stories. Their experience should serve as a wake-up call to the dangers of doing business in China. Foreigners are at risk of imprisonment on the arbitrary whim of a disgruntled official or a vaguely worded law.

Multinationals face the very real risk that forced labour is in their supply chains. It is extremely difficult for them to identify and stop it, given the Chinese state’s restrictions on due diligence, which a new anti-spy law that took effect this month classifies as espionage. The only way, Humphrey says, to avoid this risk is to stop manufacturing in China.

Yet as the ISC report lays bare, Beijing’s tentacles stretch well beyond China’s borders and the threat is not only to foreigners in China, but domestically. I myself have experienced this. I have had anonymous threatening letters coming through my letterbox from China, as have my neighbours, and my mother has received letters telling her son to shut up. Thankfully, she simply laughed and told me she had given up many years ago telling me to shut up.

Transnational repression is a growing concern. Hong Kongers, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Chinese dissidents have been threatened by Beijing’s agents around the world. One such community that has experienced this especially is Falun Gong. As well as physical attacks and surveillance, the remarkable cultural performance known as “Shen Yun” set up by a group of Falun Gong practitioners has been heavily targeted.

Stunningly choreographed, beautifully designed, with extraordinary costumes, scenery, stage sets, and dance, Shen Yun is an artistic delight. I have seen at least three or four performances in recent years and have been impressed. Its a rare opportunity to experience Chinese culture without CCP influence. Audiences are invariably and rightly wowed and it is a box office hit every time. And yet Shen Yun struggles to find venues that will host them. Many theatres that do have received threats from the Chinese embassy and pro-Beijing thugs.

Whether it is foreigners at risk in China from the regime’s injustice – and “hostage diplomacy” – or the threat to our institutions at home, from Parliament to academia to our theatres, energy sector, transport networks, and financial institutions, we need to wake up to the dangers of the Beijing dragon. And, as the ISC report shows, we must do more than wake up – we must stand up, develop a strategy, and act before it is too late.

This article was published on Conservative Home on 24 July 2023.