Letters: Calling time on China’s influence
[Re: MI5 outs alleged Chinese spy funding UK MPs, Jan 14]
What this shows is the authoritarian Chinese regime’s arrogance. After occupying Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia for decades, China has now become emboldened to crush the people of Hong Kong because they see there is nothing much the UK and other countries can do. Next they enter the UK parliament to spy. It is well known that at the universities in the UK, Chinese spies come in the form of the “Confucius Institutes”.
It is strange that while foreign diplomats, journalists and researchers based in China are unable to freely move around to places such as Tibet, their counterparts abroad enjoy the freedom of movement – even to have spies to influence MPs.
This is why it is important to support and pass the bill that Conservative MP Tim Loughton introduced in July 2019 to counter China’s restrictions on access to Tibet on British nationals. This Tibet Reciprocal Access Bill seeks to emulate the successful US Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act (RATA), which was passed in December 2018.
Britain is one of the countries that has enjoyed friendly relations with Tibet when it was an independent country. It has a moral duty to speak up for Tibet with China from a position of strength. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her book maintained that China’s claim over Tibet is dubious on historical grounds and adds that its “systematic extinction of a nation and its culture is unpardonable.” Now is the time to act.
Tsering Tash