An official from China’s foreign office has told UK officials to stop making “irresponsible” statements in regards to the threat his nation poses to Britain.
Those within the UK government should stop issuing public warnings focusing on the danger China poses to their nation, a spokesman for the country’s Communist party government has said.
While the official refused to name names, both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss — the two candidates in place to become the next head of the Conservative party and, by extension, the UK’s next Prime Minister — have been making more and more hawkish statements in regards to the eastern nation, with Sunak declaring the country to Britain’s “number one threat” on Sunday.
However, according to a report by The Guardian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has labelled warnings about his country as “irresponsible”.
“I do want to inform some UK politicians that they can’t solve their own problems by frequently using China to make arguments and hyping the ‘China threat’ and other irresponsible statements,” Zhao is reported as saying.
Other mouthpieces for the Chinese state have not quite been so diplomatic in their criticism of British officials who have begun to focus more on their country, with a recent Global Times article calling UK politicians “as sensational and low-class as the country’s tabloids”.
“If more British politicians were more professional, they would be sober-minded about the fact that the biggest threat to the UK is its own development — and governance-related puzzle,” an editorial by the publication read, referencing recent independence pushes in Scotland and the north of Ireland.
“Unfortunately, some British politicians have delivered little professionalism on domestic challenges, but displayed great enthusiasm and skilled tactics in clamoring about geopolitics, or more specifically, playing the China card, like how British tabloid newspapers attract eyeballs,” it continued.
“The trend is quite clear – some British politicians are eager to grab the limelight by simply showcasing their hawkish stance against China, just like how the UK itself tries hard to prove its global status in the global arena.”
Education Tsar Threatens to Fine University Institutions for Taking Chinese Moneyhttps://t.co/SN9EJUgQ9O
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 14, 2022
While Lijian refrained from naming specific politicians, the Global Times editorial specifically named both Liz Truss — a long-time enemy of the Chinese media — and, somewhat surprisingly, Rishi Sunak, who had formerly been seen as being more friendly towards the Communist state.
However, the World Economic Forum-linked politician appears to have since dumped his soft stance on the CCP in favour of a more hawkish mentality, with the candidate for Prime Minister having now repeatedly made statements warning of the Chinese threat.
This includes a recent statement on the country’s ever-increasing control over the UK’s university sector, with Sunak saying that he would close all of China’s Confucius Institutes that are currently in operation.
Ostensibly institutions designed on tightening relations between China and other countries, Confuscious Institutes are often seen as putting undue influence on the universities they are hosted in, with concerns surrounding free speech often leading to public outcry against them.
“Almost all UK government spending on Mandarin language teaching at school is channelled through university-based Confucius Institutes, thereby promoting Chinese soft power,” Sunak wrote online while promising to shut the UK branches down.
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