UK NGOs and Parliament Examine Chinese Influence Amid Growing Human Rights Concerns

184 launched in 2015 and relaunched in 2017, has sought input on some of the issues discussed here.” A newly launched NGO, Hong Kong Watch, focuses on drawing attention to the United Kingdom's special responsibility toward Hong Kong. The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission has produced its own report on the deteriorating human rights situation in both China and Hong Kong and has organized inquiries and events on topics such as the United Kingdom's Confucius Institutes.** While the Foreign and Commonwealth Office presents the relationship with China as primarily collaborative, it is also conducting research on Chinese influence and interference activities.?> At the international level, the United Kingdom has joined several open letters to signal its position on China’s violations of human rights.” Civil society has also sought to raise the Foreign NGO Management Law as well as to highlight intensified repression. By contrast, responses from academic institutions have so far been sporadic. For example, in 2011, the University of Cambridge disaffiliated CSSA Cambridge due to its undemocratic organization.” In 2017, international academics joined together to convince the Cambridge University Press to stop censoring its publications available in China.’® Still, despite experiencing such influence campaigns in the past, such as with Libya, which was spelled out in the 2011 Woolf Inquiry, there seems to have been no coherent initiative on protecting academic freedom and maintaining wider ethical standards in the face of these types of campaigns.”? NOTES 1 $9.6 billion in the United Kingdom according to Godement and Vasselier, “China at the Gates.” 2 “New Phase in Golden Era for UK-China Relations,” Government of the United Kingdom, December 15, 2017, accessed October 11, 2018, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-phase-in-golden-era-for-uk -china-relations. 3 Benner et al., “Authoritarian Advance.” 4 Paul Hutcheon, “China Accused of Being Behind Recent Cyber Attack on Scottish Parliament,” Herald (Scotland), September 16, 2017, accessed October 11, 2018, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news /15540166.China_accused_of_being_behind_recent_cyber_attack_on_Scottish_Parliament; Gordon Corera, “UK Think Tanks Hacked by Groups in China, Cyber-Security Firm Says,” BBC, February 26, 2018, accessed October 11, 2018, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43172371. 5 George Parker, “British MPs Banned from Hong Kong Visit,” Financial Times (UK), November 30, 2014, accessed October 11, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/08919562-78ba-11e4-b518-00144feabdco; Tom Phillips and Benjamin Haas, “British Conservative Party Activist Barred from Entering Hong Kong,” Guardian (UK), October 11, 2017, accessed October 11, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct /11/british-conservative-party-activist-benedict-rogers-hong-kong. 6 Lucy Hornby, James Kynge, and George Packer, “’Golden Era’ of UK-China Trade Links in Peril,” Financial Times (UK), January 26, 2018, subscription required, https://www.ft.com/content/cb552198-02c0-11e8 -9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5. Appendix 2 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020643