An academic is to receive £80,000 of public money to accuse MPs of spreading ‘moral panic’ over China.
The Government will sponsor a doctoral thesis that is expected to criticise parliamentarians who campaign against Beijing’s human rights abuses.
According to the research, the China Research Group for Conservative MPs is the main focus and Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
They campaign against Chinese human rights abuses such as Uighur persecution and attempt to expose economic threats and infrastructure problems.
They campaign against Chinese human right abuses such as Uighur persecution and attempt to expose economic, infrastructure, and political threats
The formal proposal for the thesis describes the CRG as having played ‘a major role in the social and political construction of China as the new international pariah’.
It will also explore ‘the potential role of the CRG in the construction of a new international political moral panic focused on China’.
University of Birmingham academic Rong Wei is scheduled to receive £20,892 plus inflation annually for the next four years.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith is a Tory MP and IPAC Member who called for an inquiry into the grant.
‘It is unbelievable that a British government can sponsor a research project whose purpose is to denigrate legitimate parliamentary research, in IPAC’s case across 22 countries, both on the Left and the Right,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph.
Tom Tugendhat is Tory MP and the CRG was formed in April 2020 following controversies about Huawei and Covid viruses.
Sir Iain and he were both among the nine Britons, and also four other groups that Beijing placed under sanction. As a response, the Palace of Westminster expelled the Chinese ambassador.
China and India are set to receive a £1.5 billion climate aid windfall despite scuppering a COP26 deal on reducing reliance on coal power
It also emerged yesterday that China and India are to receive £1.5billion in climate change funding despite wrecking agreements to reduce global warming.
This month at the COP26 conference, wealthy countries agreed to double their funding to developing countries to help them prepare for climate change.
China and India – deemed ‘developing states’ by the UN – received around £700million in 2019.
But the pledge made at Glasgow summit could see this rise to £1.5billion – with the British taxpayer footing up to £38million of the bill, the Mail on Sunday reported.