Sir Iain Duncan Smith has described the statement on China by the Deputy Prime Minister as ‘really pathetic and very small.’
The former Leader of the Conservative Party, who has been sanctioned by the Chinese government, also described the UK Foreign Office as ‘very slow and very hopeless’ and claimed he has been attacked by people who are paid by the Chinese state.
Speaking to GB News, Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “As I was watching this torturous procedure, I couldn't understand why they hyped this all over the weekend, only to discover that it's a tiny thing they're doing.
“The company, the entity, by the way, is tiny. I mean, it's literally a few hundred thousand in terms of turnover and a tiny number of people. So this is really pathetic and very small when we know very well that I’ve been sanctioned, six other of my colleagues in Parliament have been sanctioned and all of our families at the same time.
“We have no idea from the Foreign Office whether we face red notices; that’s arrest on sight if we enter a country that has an extradition agreement with China or Hong Kong.
“They've been very slow and very hopeless. But since we were sanctioned three years ago, tomorrow, what's actually happened over sanctioning is nothing.
“They've trashed the Sino-British agreement. America sanctioned over 40 people, senior people in Hong Kong for that. We have sanctioned no one and we used to run the place and we’re the signatories to the agreement.
“I have to say that I'm afraid China understands us perhaps sometimes better than we understand ourselves. They know that what galvanizes some people; the great and the good, is somehow if you pay them a lot of money, they can somehow find how wonderful you are, even though they may be on the other side of the fence.
“We need them to be called a threat. Rishi Sunak once called them a ‘systemic threat’ and I would like them to put that back into the integrated review because that's what they are, and everything follows from that."
