I was sanctioned by China. We must take seriously the scale of the threat from Beijing

The ISC report is a siren call for us not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, says Iain Duncan Smith, who has been targeted by President Xi’s regime

Iain Duncan Smith with Hong Kong protester Bob Chan, who says he was dragged into the Chinese consulate in Manchester and beaten up (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

After months in which the government blocked the release of the latest Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report on China, it was finally released on Thursday.

I had a suspicion the government knew the report would be critical of Britain’s policy towards Beijing, but even I was surprised by the scale of the rebuke; as you turn to page one, the chair makes it clear: “I think that China represents a risk on a pretty wide scale.”

Independent witnesses to the committee were damning of government policy on China, it said. “They made it clear …that [the government] did not have any strategy on China, let alone an effective one.”