MPs blacklisted by China brace themselves for cyber attacks

 Xi Jinping's China has been accused of overseeing human rights abuses of Uighur Muslim in internment camps

MPs blacklisted by China are overhauling their cyber-security amid increased hacking fears, as they declared the sanctions against them a “badge of honour”. 

One of the MPs singled out by Beijing was on Friday night locked out of their email account, prompting suspicions that a “brute force” attack had been instigated to access their inbox. 

The suspected cyber-raid on the parliamentarian, who asked to remain anonymous, exacerbated concerns about the risk to pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong and China who are found by the Communist regime to be in contact with British MPs. 

Beijing announced on Friday that it had slapped asset freezes and travel bans on Tory MPs Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Tom Tugendhat, Nus Ghani, Neil O’Brien and Tim Loughton, as well as Labour peer Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws and crossbencher peer Lord Alton of Liverpool. 

China sanctions MPs

Campaigners said that while MPs had faced travel bans in the past, they believed it was the first time British parliamentarians had been formally sanctioned by a nation state. 

Barrister Geoffrey Nice QC and academic Joanne Smith Finley were also singled out by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, alongside a series of entities: the China Research Group (CRG), the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, Uighur Tribunal and Essex Court Chambers. 

The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary expressed their solidarity with the nine China critics, as the parliamentarians affected vowed to “redouble” their campaigning efforts. 

The common theme among the nine individuals and four groups blacklisted was their role in drawing attention to reports of gross human rights abuses by the Chinese regime against its Uighur Muslim minority in the northwestern province of Xinjiang. 

Mr Tugendhat and Mr O’Brien are co-chairmen of the CRG. The other five MPs and peers are senior members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), an ultra-hawkish grouping of legislators from 19 countries. 

‘Badge of honour’

In a joint statement, the five Ipac parliamentarians said the blacklisting was “an attempt to stifle the free and open debate that is at the heart of our parliamentary democracy”. 

"Intimidation will only serve to encourage us to redouble our efforts,” they added, as Sir Iain and Ms Ghani said they considered the sanctions a “badge of honour”. 

Mr Nice, who heads the Uighur Tribunal investigating atrocities against the minority, said the sanctions against him and the tribunal would not curb its work. “We continue to hope that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will respond to our invitations to cooperate,” he said. 

An Ipac source said the designations had prompted a cyber security overhaul: “We’re upgrading security, advising all our members to change their passwords and beef up their own protocols.” 

Mr Tugendhat said: “China has already been using cyber attacks against me and others in the UK. No doubt that will increase.” 

Formal advice and support has been requested by MPs from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), as well as the parliamentary authorities. 

China’s leading diplomat in London was urgently summoned to the department on Friday to be told by Nigel Adams, the Asia minister, that Beijing’s sanctions were “unwarranted and unacceptable”. Mr Adams told Yang Xiaoguang, the Chinese Charge d’Affaires, that the move would not distract from the “violations taking place in Xinjiang”, the department said. 

The Prime Minister said he “stands firmly” with the sanctioned MPs and British citizens who are “performing a vital role” in shining a light on abuses. “Freedom to speak out in opposition to abuse is fundamental,” he added. 

Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, said Beijing’s move was a “sign of weakness” and reiterated calls for China to allow UN human rights inspectors access to Xinjiang to “verify the truth”. He has highlighted evidence of torture, rape and forced sterilisations of Uighurs in internment camps. 

China’s ministry of foreign affairs announced that the nine sanctioned Britons and their family members would be banned from entering China and Hong Kong, and that Chinese citizens and institutions were prohibited from doing business with them. 

The announcement came in retaliation to Mr Raab unveiling a raft of sanctions earlier this week on four senior Chinese officials and entities in Xinjiang that are accused of human rights violations. The UK acted in concert with the US, Canada and EU. 

Mr Tugendhat said Beijing’s tit-for-tat move to sanction the CRG was “deliberately vague” and aimed at silencing other politicians. “There are over 100 MPs from the Conservative, Labour and SNP parties in the China Research Group. It’s designed to intimidate, designed to encourage people not to be involved with the CRG,” he said. 

It remains unclear if MPs who attend, or speak at, CRG events could also fall under the sanctions regime. 

Lord Alton said he already took extreme security precautions when communicating with Chinese and Hong Kong pro-democracy activists online. 

During a recent forum of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong, of which he is vice-chairman, he said of Hong Kong participants: “Their voices had to be scrambled and their identities anonymised to protect them for imprisonment.” 

Mr O’Brien said of the Chinese state: “Given what they do in terms of cyber against much harder targets than us, I just assume that they can see everything.” 

He stressed that the asset freeze and travel ban would not affect him personally, but warned: “This is aimed at businesspeople. China is trying to warn this is what can happen to you if you do the wrong thing. Big brands like H&M, Nike, really big global firms are, like others before them, getting walloped". 

H&M and Nike have faced a backlash in China, including calls for a boycott, after airing “concerns” about cotton production in Xinjiang and allegations that Uighur forced labour is behind it. 

The Chinese Embassy in the UK claimed reports of human rights violations against Uighurs were the “lies of the century” and based on “fabricated” evidence designed to “demonise” China. 

A spokesman said Beijing was “strongly” opposed to British sanctions, adding: “Human rights in Xinjiang cannot be defined by a few satellite images, fake reports cobbled together by people thousands of miles away.”