Conservative backbencher Iain Duncan Smith has taken aim at Rishi Sunak for doing “absolutely nothing” to close unofficial “ad hoc” Chinese police stations operating in England and Scotland. The MP for Chingford and Woodford Green told Express.co.uk that Chinese nationals controlling the police stations have “been allowed to come in by the British Government”.
The unofficial police stations, two of which operate in London while the other is in Glasgow, are designed to target “expats who are no longer in China and bullying them to go home”, Mr Ducan Smith said.
“They’re not official these are people that come in”, he said. “We don’t think [they have entered the UK] on diplomatic passports but they’ve been allowed to come in by the British Government. The British Government has done absolutely nothing to shut them down.”
The police station, Mr Duncan Smith says, have forced “loads” of British-based Chinese expats to leave the UK for China.
“They get them on a video link and on the link at the other end in China are members of their family being bullied.”
The former Conservative leader told Express.co.uk that Chinese influence is being exerted “everywhere” in Britain, including in UK universities.
“Universities [are] totally dependent on their money from the [Chinese] students”, he said. Overseas students from China are “spied” on whilst in Britain Mr Duncan Smith insisted.
“They use Confucius institutes to spy on Chinese students to make sure they don’t do anything they shouldn’t do.”
Top UK institutions are also “totally dependent” on Chinese money “paid to them for research work”, something which Cambridge University, he says, “is particularly bad for.” Cambridge University have been approached for comment.
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Mr Duncan Smith took aim at the London Mayor over the Chinese embassy proposal.
“It’s better he doesn’t intervene because he would have intervened in the wrong way”, he said. “He would have tried to approve it.”
China’s current embassy is in the central London location of Marylebone. The embassy was first established in 1877.
