Tory backlash over 'appeasement' of China

RISHI Sunak faces a backlash from Tory MPs over a drift towards appeasement of China.

He is today seeing Xi Jinping – the first PM to meet China’s President in five years. In the Tory leader contest Mr Sunak had said “for too long politicians in Britain have rolled out the red carpet” to the Communist regime, adding: “I think I’ll face down China, it is our number one threat.”

But he pushed for this meeting on the margins of the G20, to ease tensions with Beijing. The PM sidestepped questions about if he was “going soft” on China but said the nation “represents a systemic challenge to our values”.

Seven MPs and peers were sanctioned by Beijing for speaking out against the regime. Ex-Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, one of the MPs, said: “I am worried that the present Prime Minister, when he meets Xi Jinping, will be perceived as weak because it now looks like we’re drifting into appeasement with China, which is a disaster as it was in the 1930s [with Nazi Germany].

“If we don’t have them down as a strategic threat, then nothing gets done on the ever-pressing threat that they pose. They’re a threat to our values, they’re a threat to economic stability, they’re a threat to us because of their failure to cooperate...early on that led to Covid spreading.” Sir Iain, co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, added: “They only understand strength and strength of purpose.”