Gormless UK foreign secretary David Lammy summarised the China Audit in Parliament on Tuesday, June 24th. Good luck to anyone obliged to wade through its verbiage, but there’s a catch: Lammy will not be publishing the paper he quoted at length to the House of Commons.
There’s some speculation that the underlying motive for this disappearance is the need not to offend China, a major trading partner of Britain and the main cash cow of its higher education system.
This marks the abandonment of the only line of China policy in last year’s Labour manifesto and it leaves other policy documents, written on the assumption that the Audit would be published, swinging in the wind. This includes the National Security review, which notes how the buried report
recommends an increase in China capabilities across the national security system to strengthen ability to engage, as well as our resilience and readiness on the basis of deeper knowledge and training. That includes creating the basis for a reciprocal and balanced economic relationship, by providing guidance to those in the private or higher education sectors for which China is an important partner. To ensure that the public, businesses, academia and partners understand our approach, and have the right guidance to help them make safe decisions, we will bring together existing guidance on China in a new gov.uk hub and continue to develop comprehensive guidance relevant to engagement with China.
But did it? No one will know if they are unable to read the published version.
More serious issues include the potential ‘Trojan horse’ of Chinese technology, central to Britain’s net zero folly, and the development of a brand new embassy complex—likely to function as an industrial-scale espionage centre when it opens. Lammy’s refusal to publish the China Audit is yet another step in his government’s sprint away from democratic accountability.
