As Rishi Sunak soldiers on with the Conservative Party’s drive towards carbon ‘net zero,’ there are increasing fears around new powers being handed to Beijing.
Chinese electric vehicles are expected to flood the British market in the coming years ahead of the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. The Tory government has been urged to drop the restriction, but as former cabinet minister Sir John Redwood earlier this year told The European Conservative, Mr. Sunak’s administration has “so far” proved itself “unwilling” to reconsider.
It is now feared that the prevalence of Chinese electric cars on British roads will not only allow Beijing to paralyse motorists, as we previously reported, but also to spy on citizens.
Government sources cited in The Sunday Telegraph have warned that technology embedded in these vehicles could be used to harvest “huge” amounts of information, such as audio and video recordings and location data. One official said:
If it is manufactured in a country like China, how certain can you be that it won’t be a vehicle for collecting intel and data? If you have electric vehicles manufactured by countries who are already using technology to spy, why would they not do the same here?
The source described electric vehicles from the East Asian country as “high-risk products,” adding that “we know that China always thinks in very long terms. So if they were providing a product that could do more than just deliver the consumer’s desire to go from A to B, why would they not be doing it?”
The Chinese state-owned Global Times jibed that these fears have sprouted from a “paranoia” about Beijing which is “comical.”
But the warnings come just months after reports of a Chinese tracking device being discovered sealed inside a UK government car.
In a not-so-convincing response to these warnings, a government spokesman told the Telegraph: “We will never compromise our national security and are continuing to strengthen our infrastructure and supply chain resilience to protect UK economic security.”
