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March 25 (UPI) -- British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden told MPs on Monday that entities linked to the Chinese government were behind the alleged accessing of the personal details of 40 million U.K. voters and cyberattacks on lawmakers critical of China. In the House of Commons on Monday, Dowden announced sanctions against China for hacking the Electoral Commission in London in 2021, which was only disclosed two years after it happened.
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According to Sky News, Dowden said the Foreign Office also would summon the Chinese ambassador "to account for China's conduct in these incidents," as the United Kingdom joined with international partners such as the United States in issuing sanctions against the People's Republic of China-based APT 31 hacking group.
In August, the commission said un-named "hostile actors" had accessed lists of voters who are registered to vote and hacked into its email and "control systems," but the commission denied the attack had affected any election or any individuals' ability to participate.
The move by the British government was carried out in concert with similar action by other Western governments. Also on Monday, the United States unsealed an indictment and announced sanctions on seven Chinese nationals for a series of alleged cyber-related crimes over the course of 14 years. According to the U.S. Justice Department, APT 31 hackers are alleged to have targeted U.S. and foreign cities, businesses, political officials and others.
In September in the United Kingdom, a parliamentary aide was arrested on suspicion of spying for China and in July 2022, parliament issued an alert after MI5 alleged London-based lawyer Christine Lee had been heading a political interference operation on behalf of China that included campaign donations.
Conservative MPs Iain Duncan Smith and Tim Loughton, Stewart McDonald of the Scottish Nationalist Party, and Liberal Party Lord, David Alton -- who have been the victims of cyberattacks -- received a separate briefing from the head of security for parliament.
They are among 43 people in and around the government who have been targeted in a series of attacks.
However, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international caucus of like-minded lawmakers concerned about hybrid threats from China, accused Downing Street of being slow to react to the cyberattacks.
IPAC executive director Luke de Pulford told BBC Radio on Monday morning that the delay in revealing the China connection to the Electoral Commission hack "indicates that the government was a little bit reluctant to say that China had actually done this."
"There seems to be a reluctance in general to hold China to account for its abuses," de Pulford said.
"We need targeted sanctions on those responsible, but we also need support for members of parliament and those who are targeted by Beijing."
He noted that, unlike the United States, London had only sanctioned some Chinese middle-level officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang province with no parallel action taken over the crackdown in Hong Kong despite strong familial, cultural and historic ties with its former colony.
"The United States sanctioned over 40 members of the government in Hong Kong, and the U.K., even though we are the ones with a legal responsibility, have sanctioned zero, not one," he said.
Junior Energy Minister Andrew Bowie vowed protecting Britons from cyberattacks was a top priority saying time, money and effort had been invested in strengthening cybersecurity and intelligence and security agency powers had been ramped up.
"We will stop at nothing to ensure that the British people, our democracy, our freedom of speech and our way of life is defended," said Bowie.
But he defended the government's trade and investment policy regarding China amid reports China's EVE Energy is to invest in a new car battery plant in the West Midlands.
"We have to have a grown-up, pragmatic relationship with China. And that means looking at each of these investments in the round, on a case-by-case basis, ensuring that our security and our individual liberties and freedoms are not undermined by any of the investments that are underway," he added.
A Commons Intelligence and Security Committee report published last year found China's "size, ambition and capability" had enabled it to "successfully penetrate every sector of the U.K.'s economy."
The report goes on to allege that right up until the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese money was "readily accepted by His Majesty's Government with few questions asked."
