LONDON — The U.K. government is “dragging its heels” on whether to classify China as a major threat to Britain’s national security, the parliament’s intelligence watchdog warned on Monday. Lawmakers on the Intelligence and Security Committee — which has access to classified briefings as part of its work overseeing Britain’s intelligence services — said they are “concerned” by apparent inaction over whether to designate Beijing as a top-level threat when it comes to influencing Britain. Ministers have been under pressure to put China on the “enhanced tier” of Britain’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme — a tool to protect the economy and society from covert hostile activity. Both Iran and Russia have been placed on the top tier, which adds a new layer of restrictions and accountability to their activities in Britain. The government has so far resisted calls to add China to that list, even though Beijing has been accused of conducting state-threat activities in the U.K. such as industrial espionage, cyber-attacks and spying on politicians.  In its annual report the Committee said British intelligence agency MI5 had previously told them that measures like the registration scheme would “have proportionately more effect against … Chinese activity.” The Committee said “hostile activity by Russian, Iranian and Chinese state-linked actors is multi-faceted and complex,” adding that the threat of “state-sponsored assassination, attacks and abductions” of perceived dissidents has “remained at a higher level than we have seen in previous years.”  It added that while there are “a number of difficult trade-offs involved” when dealing with Beijing, it has “previously found that the Government has been reluctant to prioritise security considerations when it comes to China.” “The Government should swiftly come to a decision on whether to add China to the Enhanced Tier of the [Foreign Influence Registration Scheme],” the Committee said, demanding that it be provided a “full account” to “ensure that security concerns have not been overlooked in favour of economic considerations.” The pressure comes as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer prepares to visit China in January — the first British leader to visit the country since Theresa May in 2018.  A government spokesperson said: “National security is the first duty of this government. We value the [Intelligence and Security Committee]’s independent oversight and the thoroughness of their scrutiny. “This report underscores the vital, complex work our agencies undertake daily to protect the UK. “This Government is taking a consistent, long term and strategic approach to managing the UK’s relations with China, rooted in UK and global interests. We will cooperate where we can and challenge where we must.”

LONDON — On the face of it, the new MI6 chief’s first speech featured many of the same villains and heroes as those of her predecessors. But in her first public outing Monday, Blaise Metreweli, the first female head of the U.K.’s foreign intelligence service, sent a strong signal that she intends to put her own stamp on the role – as she highlighted a wave of inter-connected threats to western democracies. Speaking at MI6’s HQ in London, Metreweli, who took over from Richard Moore in October, highlighted a confluence of geo-political and technological disruptions, warning “the frontline is everywhere” and adding “we are now operating in a space between peace and war.” In a speech shot through with references to a shifting transatlantic order and the growth of disinformation, Metreweli made noticeably scant  reference to the historically close relationship with the U.S. in intelligence gathering — the mainstay of the U.K.’s intelligence compact for decades. Instead, she highlighted that a “new bloc and identities are forming and alliances reshaping.” That will be widely seen to reflect an official acknowledgement that the second Donald Trump administration has necessitated a shift in the security services towards cultivating more multilateral relationships. By comparison with a lengthy passage on the seriousness of the Russia threat to Britain, China got away only with a light mention of its cyber attack tendencies towards the U.K. — and was referred to more flatteringly as “a country where a central transformation  is  taking place this century.” Westminster hawks will note that Metreweli — who grew up in Hong Kong and  so knows the Chinese system close-up — walked gingerly around the risk of conflict in the  South China Sea and Beijing’s espionage activities targeting British politicians – and even its royals. In a carefully-placed line, she reflected that she was  “going to break with tradition and won’t give you a global threat tour.” Moore, her predecessor, was known for that approach, which delighted those who enjoyed a plain-speaking MI6 boss giving pithy analysis of global tensions and their fallout, but frustrated some in the Foreign Office who believed the affable Moore could be too unguarded in his comments on geo-politics. The implicit suggestion from the new chief was that China needs to be handled differently to the forthright engagement with “aggressive, expansionist and revisionist” Russia. The reasons may well lie in the aftermath of a bruising argument within Whitehall about how to handle the recent case of two Britons who were arrested for spying for China, and with a growth-boosting visit to Beijing by the prime minister scheduled for 2026. Sources in the service suggest the aim of the China strategy is to avoid confrontation, the better to further intelligence-gathering and have a more productive economic relationship with Beijing. More hardline interpreters of the Secret Intelligence Service will raise eyebrows at her suggestion that the “convening power” of the service would enable it to “ defuse tensions.” But there was no doubt about Metreweli’s deep concern at the impacts of social-media disinformation and distortion, in a framing which seemed just as worried about U.S. tech titans as conventional state-run threats:  “We are being contested from battlefield to boardroom — and even our brains — as disinformation manipulates our understanding of each other.” Declaring that “some  algorithms become as powerful as states,” seemed to tilt at outfits like Elon Musk’s X and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta-owned Facebook. Metreweli warned that “hyper personalized tools could become a new vector for conflict and control,” pushing their effects on societies and individuals  in “minutes not months – my service must operate in this new context too.” The new boss used the possessive pronoun, talking about “my service” in her speech several times – another sign that she intends to put a distinctive mark of the job, now that she has, at the age of just 48,  inherited the famous green-ink pen in which the head of the service signs correspondence.  Metreweli is experienced operator in war zones including Iraq who spent a secondment with MI5, the domestic intelligence service, and won the job in large part because of her experience in the top job via MI6’s science and technology “Q”  Branch. She clearly wants to expedite changes in the service – saying agents must be as fluent in computer coding as foreign languages. She is also expected to try and address a tendency in the service to harvest information, without a clear focus on the action that should follow – the product of a glut of intelligence gathered via digital means and AI. She  was keen to stress that the human factor is at the heart of it all — an attempt at reassurance for spies and analysts wondering if they might be replaced by AI agents as the job of gathering intelligence in the era of facial recognition and biometrics gets harder.  Armed with a steely gaze Metreweli speaks fluent human, occasionally with a small smile. She is also the first incumbent of the job to wear a very large costume jewelry beetle brooch on her sombre navy attire. No small amount of attention in Moscow and Beijing could go into decoding that.

HOW THE KREMLIN GETS UKRAINIANS TO BETRAY THEIR COUNTRY Two young people were desperately short of cash. Then the Kremlin stepped in to help. By VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA in Kyiv Illustration by Hokyoung Kim for POLITICO Olena, 19, and Bohdan, 22, smile happily as they enter the room; they’re in handcuffs and are accompanied by armed Security Service of Ukraine agents. It’s the first time the couple has seen each other in a month; both are being held in a detention center until their trial on treason charges. Olena is blonde with soft, childish features, and Bohdan is an athletic young man. Both admit that they colluded with Russia in hopes of getting a 15-year prison sentence instead of spending life behind bars. They were not identified by their last names. The security service, or SBU, accused Olena and Bohdan of using spy cameras to watch Western weapons deliveries and a police station, and that they were preparing to reveal air defense locations in Kyiv and the northern Chernihiv regions to the Russians‬. They were caught by SBU agents. Bohdan and Olena are not alone. The SBU has investigated more than 24,000 cases of crimes against Ukrainian national security since February 2022, and more than 4,100 cases of state treason, with more than 2,300 being currently before the courts, said the SBU press service. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS “It all started when we found an ad in a Telegram channel called Jobs in Kyiv. The ad promised easy money. We started doing it, because we really needed some cash, like most of the people in Ukraine nowadays,” said Olena. “We really wanted to live together, but we were in debt, worked a lot, fought a lot because we still had no money,” Bohdan said. First, Olena and Bohdan were asked to scout out local supermarkets, taking pictures of shelves and price tags and checking shop schedules. But over time, the tasks changed. They got orders to set cameras next to a police station and then on a railroad used to carry shipments of Western weapons into Ukraine. Then there was the final task — set up spy cameras to spot air defense locations in the Kyiv region. Bohdan admitted he figured out they were working for Russia after the first two jobs, but preferred to “think positively.” There was also fear about what Russia could do to them if they tried to stop.  “Those guys would not let you jump off that easily,” Olena said. Usually, Russians promise different sums to their recruits in Ukraine, depending on the complexity of the job, an SBU official said on condition of anonymity to reveal details of investigations. The SBU said that Russia is directing a lot of resources to destabilize Ukraine from inside. | Igor Golovniov/LightRocket via Getty Images The tasks can vary: from taking pictures of military factories, railways, electricity infrastructure and oil refineries — which helps Russians locate targets and direct missiles and drones — to bombing military recruitment offices and police stations, and burning military cars. Four years into a brutal war, the motivation for turncoats is more money than ideology. There are few Russian allies left in territory held by Ukraine, instead, Russia hunts for agents among the poor and desperate who need cash, several SBU officials said. Olena and Bohdan admit that they were helping Russia for money. She worked as a fast-food cook, sometimes for 12 to 16 hours a day for little pay, while he worked temporary jobs.  “The reward can start from several hundred to several thousand hryvnias, with no guarantee that they would actually get paid,” the SBU official said. “Olena and Bohdan were getting 400-3,000 hryvnias (€8-€62) for a mission.” Even the money Moscow was paying left them struggling to survive. THE KREMLIN’S GAME The SBU said that Russia is directing a lot of resources to destabilize Ukraine from the inside. Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation, the country’s top law enforcement agency, has registered 1,500 criminal proceedings for treason against Ukrainian officials, judges, military personnel and law enforcement officers since 2022. “Each fact of high treason, collaboration, aiding the aggressor state, and other crimes is thoroughly investigated by law enforcers in accordance with their jurisdiction,” the SBU said. Then there is the issue of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation, where the struggle to survive can put them on the wrong side of Ukrainian law. “In no way am I justifying real collaborators. But many of those on trial for collaborationism are just people trying to survive under Russian occupation,” said Hanna Rassamakhina, head of the War and Justice Department at the Media Initiative for Human Rights nongovernmental organization. “We see that any person who remained in the occupied territory, who is forced to look for work, means of livelihood, of course, he is in contact with the occupation authorities against his will, such a person cannot be 100 percent sure that he will not be accused of collaborationism later.” While some more high-profile defendants can hire expensive lawyers to try to get them off the hook and cut their sentences, that’s unlikely to happen for Bohdan and Olena. “A professional lawyer is often enough to destroy the accusation. But many of these people are not able to hire a professional lawyer. In the end, courts actually accept all the arguments of the prosecution, and these people are convicted,” Rassamakhina said. That prompts many accused to go for plea deals to reduce the harshness of the sentence. Olena and Bohdan have made peace with the fact that they will likely not see each other for at least 15 years. They are planning to meet again after they have served their time. When reminded about a possibility of being released from prison if a convict agrees to serve in the Ukrainian army, Bohdan said he would rather stay in prison. “I already talked to some inmates about that and, you know … People don’t come back from there … And I don’t want to waste my life in vain,” Bohdan said.

LONDON — Keir Starmer is set to approve a new Chinese “super-embassy” in central London despite a string of security concerns which were raised through the planning process. The Times reported Friday that intelligence services MI5 and MI6 are now satisfied that the project — long a source of controversy in the U.K. — should go ahead, with some “mitigations” to protect national security. A British government official did not reject the Times reporting when pressed Friday. The 20,000-square meter building near the Tower of London  is expected to be the biggest embassy in Europe once completed.  Beijing purchased the site for £255 million in 2018, but objections have since been raised over its proximity to cables carrying communications to the vital City of London financial district. There are also concerns over Beijing’s refusal to present full internal layout plans to British authorities. China angrily warned of “consequences” if the embassy was not granted planning permission, with British ministers repeatedly delaying a decision on whether to proceed. However, the outgoing head of MI6, Richard Moore, recently said it was “right and proper” to allow the embassy to be built despite national security fears. Starmer has faced a domestic backlash as he tries to reset relations with China. His government faced blowback over the collapsed prosecution of two men accused of spying for Beijing, while China-skeptics have attacked the government for failing to publish a major audit of the U.K.’s policy towards the country. This week the security services warned MPs they were being actively targeted by agents of the Chinese state on social network LinkedIn. Starmer is nonetheless expected to travel to China next year as Britain seeks to strengthen economic ties with Beijing. It would mark the first visit by a U.K. prime minister to China since Theresa May in 2018.

WARSAW — Saboteurs who damaged a small section of a rail line linking the Polish capital to the eastern city of Lublin and on to Ukraine were two Ukrainians working for Russia, Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the Polish parliament Tuesday. Train traffic along the busy route was halted Sunday morning after a high-speed Intercity train driver spotted damage to the line, warning nearby trains. “The outcome could have been a serious disaster with victims,” Tusk told MPs. The perpetrators are two Ukrainian nationals “who have been operating and cooperating with Russian services for a prolonged period of time,” the Polish leader said. They had left their country for Belarus, from where they arrived in Poland shortly before carrying out the attack on the rail line. Both returned to Belarus before Polish services identified them.  Tusk said one of the suspects had a track record of being involved in acts of sabotage in Ukraine. The other, he added, was a resident of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. “Polish security services and prosecutors have all personal data of these individuals, as well as recorded images of them,” Tusk said, adding Poland will ask Belarusian and Russian authorities to hand over the suspects to face trial. The Warsaw-Lublin train route that was attacked is one of country’s busiest, linking the capital to the biggest city in eastern Poland and on toward Ukraine.  Tusk described the two attempts at sabotaging the line. “The first involved placing a steel clamp on the track, with a likely intention to derail a train. The incident was meant to be recorded by a mobile phone with a power bank that had been set up near the tracks. That attempt proved entirely unsuccessful. “[In] the second incident … a military-grade C-4 explosive was detonated using an initiating device connected by a 300-meter electrical cable.” Tusk also said that the government will introduce a higher degree of security alert, known as “Charlie,” along selected rail lines. A lower security alert, “Bravo,” remains in place for the rest of the country. Since Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Poland has been on high alert for cases of foreign espionage and sabotage, and has arrested multiple people on those grounds. Last month, two Ukrainian nationals were detained on suspicion of spying for a foreign intelligence service. Other recent incidents include an alleged Belarusian refugee accused by authorities of being a Russian operative, a fire set in a shopping mall near Warsaw and an alleged attempt to sabotage a railway station in southern Poland by leaving an unmarked railcar on tracks used by passenger trains. “The adversary has begun preparations for war,” the Polish chief of the general staff, Gen. Wiesław Kukuła, told Polish Radio Monday. “It is building a certain environment here that is intended to undermine public trust in the government and institutions such as the armed forces and the police. This is to create conditions conducive to potential aggression on Polish territory,” Kukuła said.

LONDON — British lawmakers are being actively targeted by agents of the Chinese state with lucrative job offers on LinkedIn, according to the U.K.’s intelligence services. House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle on Tuesday circulated an espionage alert from security agency MI5, which warned that two “recruitment head-hunters” are “known to be using” profiles on the career-focused social network “to conduct outreach at scale” for the Chinese security services. “Their aim is to collect information and lay the groundwork for long-term relationships, using professional networking sites, recruitment agents and consultants acting on their behalf,” the message from Hoyle to MPs — which mirrors one issued by his counterpart in the House of Lords — says. Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, U.K. Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the latest assessment showed how China “is attempting to recruit and cultivate individuals with access to sensitive information about parliament and the U.K. government.” He said such work is being carried by a group of Chinese intelligence officers “often masked through the use of cover companies or external headhunters.” “China has a low threshold for what information is considered to be of value, and will gather individual pieces of information to build a wider picture,” he warned in a House of Commons statement. In a bid to get on the front foot over the issue, Jarvis on Tuesday announced a new “counter political interference and espionage action plan.” Measures include tougher risk assessment rules for recipients of donations, and enhanced enforcement powers for the Electoral Commission, the U.K.’s elections watchdog. Security campaigns led by the U.K. parliamentary authorities will also take place, including tailored briefings for Britain’s devolved governments, political parties, and all candidates taking part in devolved and local elections next May. “This activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs in favor of its own interests, and this government will not tolerate it,” Jarvis warned. The guidance follows a bitter political row in the U.K. over Chinese interference in British politics. British prosecutors this year dropped charges against two men accused of spying for China, one of whom previously worked in parliament. The Palace of Westminster is also contemplating tightening parliamentary access for Chinese visitors.

The German government is set to get new powers to bar risky Chinese technology suppliers from its critical infrastructure. Lawmakers in the federal Bundestag parliament on Thursday approved legislation that would give new tools to the Interior Ministry to ban the use of components from specific manufacturers in critical sectors over cybersecurity risks. The measures resemble what European countries have done in the telecom sector, but the new German bill applies to a much wider range of sectors, including energy, transport and health care. The law comes as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday signaled a tougher stance against Chinese tech giant Huawei, telling a business conference in Berlin that he “won’t allow any components from China in the 6G network.” Merz is set to discuss the issue at a major digital sovereignty summit co-hosted by Germany and France next week. The fresh scrutiny for supply chain security in the EU’s largest economy — a manufacturing powerhouse with a complex relationship with China — comes at a time when the European Union is considering how best to tackle cyber risks in supply chains dominated by Chinese firms. Governments are looking beyond the telecom sector, pushing for action in areas such as solar power and connected cars. European cybersecurity officials are finalizing an ICT Supply Chain Toolbox to help governments mitigate the risks, and the European Commission is preparing an overhaul of its Cybersecurity Act to address the issue, expected in January. The German legislation implements the EU’s NIS2 Directive, a critical infrastructure cybersecurity law. The Bundesrat, Germany’s upper legislative chamber, still has to sign off on the bill, which is expected next Friday. The key question is whether Germany is willing to use its powers, said Noah Barkin, a senior advisor at Rhodium Group, a think tank. On telecoms, “this helps lay the groundwork for pushing Huawei out of the 5G network, but it doesn’t guarantee that the political will will be there to take that decision,” he said.  The Interior Ministry could already block telecom operators from using particular components under an existing German IT security law. The law’s 2021 revision was widely seen as an attempt to get Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE out of telecom network due to fears of cybersecurity and security risks. The Interior Ministry intervened in 2024, but it has never formally blocked the use of specific components under that law. For its new cyber law, the government originally proposed to extend the measures applying to the telecom industry to the electricity sector as well. But parliament’s version now applies to all critical sectors, which under the EU’s NIS2 law includes areas such as transport, health care and digital infrastructure.  German center-left lawmaker Johannes Schätzl, the digital policy spokesperson for the SPD, said this is a “logical step, because cyber and hybrid threats do not stop at sectoral boundaries.” The Interior Ministry will be required to consult with other arms of government when considering bans or blocks of certain suppliers, the bill said. In the past, some ministries like the digital and economy departments have been more reluctant to banning Chinese components, in part due to fears of economic retaliation from Beijing. Industry, too, could resist the new measures. German technology trade association Bitkom on Thursday said that the new rules could be unpredictable and therefore “detrimental.”

LONDON — The Palace of Westminster is contemplating tightening parliamentary access for Chinese visitors in the wake of a collapsed spying case, according to media reports. The Telegraph newspaper reported Sunday evening that House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle is looking to mirror measures introduced by the European Parliament, which banned lobbyists for Chinese tech company Huawei from the premises earlier this year. The European legislature also imposed restrictions on Chinese officials entering the buildings in April 2023 after tit-for-tat sanctions were imposed over human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Those restrictions were eventually lifted earlier this year. Speaker Hoyle discussed the situation with his European counterpart to learn how such restrictions could be practically imposed in the U.K., the Telegraph reported. Hoyle’s office did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The move comes amid intense scrutiny of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government and the Crown Prosecution Service after charges against two men — including a former researcher for a Conservative MP — accused of spying for China were dropped. It’s not the first time Hoyle has flexed his muscles on China. Beijing’s Ambassador to the U.K. Zheng Zeguang was banned from parliament in 2021 in retaliation for China imposing sanctions on British MPs critical of the country’s human rights record.

LONDON — The Chinese Communist Party laid into the British government Friday after it delayed a decision over a controversial proposed “super embassy” in London. Britain would “bear all consequences” if planning permission for the 20,000 square meter Chinese Embassy — expected to be the biggest embassy in Europe — near the Tower of London is refused, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said. Beijing purchased the site for the planned embassy for £255 million in 2018. U.K. Communities Secretary Steve Reed must make a final decision to approve or reject the building application, which has proven deeply controversial with China hawks in the U.K. parliament. Significant security concerns have been raised over the site’s proximity to cables carrying communications to the City of London financial district, and Beijing’s refusal to present full internal layout plans to British authorities. Britain this week pushed the deadline for a final ruling on the building from Oct. 21 to Dec. 10, prompting “grave concern and strong dissatisfaction” from Beijing. Lin told a press conference in China Friday that the country had displayed “the utmost sincerity and patience” during talks over the site, and accused Britain of showing “disregard for contractual spirit, acting in bad faith and without integrity.” A decision was initially due by Sept. 9 after ministers took control of the application from Tower Hamlets Council in London, making this the second delay by the British government. The delay comes in a particularly sensitive week for U.K.-China relations. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has faced pressure over the collapsed prosecution of two men accused of spying for China. Lin demanded Britain “immediately fulfill its obligations and honor its commitments … otherwise the British side shall bear all consequences.”

LONDON — The threat from states such as China is as bad or worse as the threat of terrorism, the head of one of Britain’s top intelligence agencies warned Thursday. Giving his annual threat update speech from MI5 headquarters at Thames House in London, MI5 director general Ken McCallum called for the most profound change in the way British intelligence operates “since 9/11.” His comments come as Westminster continues to be engulfed by questions over the high-profile collapse of a case against two alleged Chinese spies. Both the British government and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have faced scrutiny over the case after the CPS unexpectedly dropped the charges against the two men in question last month. Speaking Thursday, McCallum said his teams are running a “near-record” volume of investigations into terrorism, and have foiled 19 late-stage terrorism attacks since 2020. But he said that threats from states — including China — are now a “second menace of equal or even greater scale,” forcing “the biggest shifts in MI5’s mission since 9/11.” McCallum said that since his update last year state-based threats to the U.K. are “escalating,” with an increase in the number of people being investigated for state threat activity — such as espionage “against our Parliament.” FRUSTRATED THE CASE COLLAPSED Christopher Cash, 30, a former researcher for a Conservative MP, and Christopher Berry, a 33-year-old teacher, both denied allegations that they passed sensitive information to an alleged Chinese intelligence agent between 2021 and 2023. On Wednesday evening the British government published key witness statements from Matthew Collins, the deputy national security advisor, whose evidence was blamed by CPS for not providing enough grounds to prosecute the two men accused of spying for Beijing. Asked how he felt about the collapse of the China prosecution against the two men, McCallum said: “Of course I am frustrated when opportunities to prosecute national security-threatening activity are not followed through.” He added that in this specific event “the activity was disrupted” by MI5 and that his teams have “every right to feel proud” of the work they have done in the case. However he said that it is “far from unprecedented” for his officers to disrupt a threat to national security and for it not to result in a criminal conviction. Asked about Collins, the deputy national security advisor who submitted the witness statements to the CPS, McCallum said he would make a “rare exception” to speak about Collins’ integrity, having worked with him. “I do consider him to be a man of high integrity and a professional of considerable quality,” he said. McCallum was also careful not to criticize the work of the CPS, telling journalists: “Not only am I not a criminal prosecutor, I’m not a lawyer. And so for the same reason that the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) presumably wouldn’t stand up and comment on how to run covert intelligence operations, I’m not going to presume to appoint myself a temporary expert in the running of prosecutions.” The decision to replace Britain’s Official Secrets Act with a new National Security Act — pointed to by the current Labour government as a key reason the case collapsed — was praised by McCallum, who said it has “definitely has closed serious weaknesses that we have previously suffered from.” CHINA A WIDER THREAT The MI5 head said the relationship between Britain and China is “complex,” but his agency’s role “is not,” adding that the U.K, needs to become a “hard target” to “all the threats, including China, but not limited to China.” McCallum revealed that in the last week MI5 had “intervened operationally” against China, though this is not believed to be related to alleged spying on Parliament by Beijing. “Do Chinese state actors present a U.K. national security threat? And the answer is, of course, yes they do, every day,” he said. However, the MI5 chief would not “comment on the overall balance of U.K. bilateral foreign policy relationships with China.” “When it comes to China the U.K. needs to defend itself resolutely against security threats and seize the opportunities that demonstrably serve our nation,” he added, pointing that the U.K. and its Five Eyes allies including the U.S. share a “pragmatic approach” and that having a “substantive relationship with China” means Britain is in a “stronger position from which to push back.”