UK’s anti-China lobby is facing ‘nightmare’

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• Country’s right wingers want to silence student by having grant withdrawn

• Britain’s ‘free press’ is so far backing the call for very unfree censorship

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A RIGHT-WING GROUP of UK anti-China politicians are in a state of shock after learning that an academic wants to write a paper about their activities.

“Am I awake? Is this a nightmare?” Benedict Rogers, a mega-critic of China, asked in response to the news.

What’s his nightmare? A University of Birmingham researcher wants to write a thesis looking at the UK’s anti-China lobby.

These individuals generally cluster in two groups: the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, and the China Research Group. Mostly made up of wealthy activists, they work to break up academic, enterprise and investment connections between British and Chinese people. They do this by sharing extremely negative stories about the developing Asian nation, and by attacking Chinese technological developments such as the dreaded 5G.

UNBELIEVABLE

Benedict Rogers’ colleague Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘It is unbelievable that a British government can sponsor a research project whose purpose is to denigrate legitimate parliamentary research…”

With immense (but unacknowledged) irony, the Western “free press” has so far come down firmly on the side of preventing a student researching into whether these stirrers are doing harm – despite the fact that the researcher is doing what the press itself should be doing.

The anti-China campaign clusters, whose members include Lord David Alton and MP Tom Tugendhat, are known for their extreme positions, such as pushing a widely debunked story that Hong Kong police secretly murdered protesters at an underground train station.

WHAT’S SO SCARY?

But why are they scared of a student’s gaze?

Mainstream media paint the politicians as brave crusaders who want to free Chinese citizens from their society’s own leadership.

But most people in academia know the truth, which is that Chinese citizens support their leadership.

More to the point, people who probe may discover and share the news that the UK campaigners receive cash from well-known international anti-Chinese bodies, including the C.I.A.’s destabilization spin-off, called the National Endowment for Democracy, and units bankrolled by billionaire George Soros, known for funding NGOs with a strong political slant.

Furthermore, Iain Duncan Smith has been named in the UK’s current probe into sleaze allegations.

JOB LOSSES

Most damagingly, ordinary working people in the UK and in China have said that the antics of Sinophobic politicians have greatly harmed workers and enterprises in both countries. China has been a big investor in the UK, directly or indirectly employing 26,000 people.

The study will be well-researched. University of Birmingham student Rong Wei earlier this year co-presented a conference session with respected UK political scientist Peter Burnham. The theme was “Scapegoating China”.

HOBBLING THE CLIMATE CHANGE EFFORT

The anti-Chinese hostility fostered by the groups has meant the British government has had to cut Chinese participants out of the UK’s nuclear power plans—delaying them just at a time when they are needed to enable the country to meet climate change targets.

There has also been a rise in street violence against Asian people.

CREATING A PARIAH

The planned thesis by doctoral candidate Rong Wei will include a look at how anti-China campaigners played “a major role in the social and political construction of China as the new international pariah”.

It will examine “the potential role of the CRG in the construction of a new international political moral panic focused on China”.

Duncan Smith hopes to get the study halted, by campaigning for the grant that the scholar won, which is £20,892 annually for four years, to be withdrawn. With further irony, the total budget is less than the annual “extra” fee of £25,000 that the politician has been named as receiving in the sleaze accusation.

At the time of writing, the Daily Mail has joined with the Daily Telegraph to present the proposed study as an outrage against noble crusaders.

No Western media has defended the student.

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Image at the top from: Scott Graham/ Unsplash