interests linked to Beijing.
Parliamentary questions had been lodged by Monday evening, hours after Cameron took on the post, over his decision to promote a Chinese-funded port in Sri Lanka which has prompted concerns that Beijing would gain a significant foothold in the Indo-Pacific. Cameron faces calls to declare how much he was paid.
Separately, John Penrose, the former anti-corruption champion, said that Cameron would have to “shed” commitments to any Chinese companies so he can “operate with a clean pair of hands”.
Cameron takes over the Foreign Office at a difficult time amid alarm at Beijing’s increased aggression in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait and concerns about prolific espionage activities in the UK.
Last month Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, warned that Chinese spies have targeted more than 20,000 Britons on LinkedIn alone and said that economic espionage presented the greatest threat to UK interests since the Cold War.
Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a China-sceptic campaign group, said that Cameron’s cosy former links meant that he would face difficult questions on his policy stances. De Pulford said: “He was the guy who naively opened the door to Beijing to acquire aspects of our most sensitive critical national infrastructure. You might have been able to forgive it during the ‘golden era’. But he continued with it while everyone else had woken up.” He called for full transparency on Cameron’s financial dealings since he left office.
Cameron’s financial affairs in general are lacking transparency. In April 2020, Cameron’s vehicle for engaging in public life, the Office of David Cameron, was converted into an unlimited company. This relatively rare form of company does not protect the owner from liabilities should it become insolvent. The potential advantage of using an unlimited company, experts say, is that the company is not required to file public accounts with Companies House and can therefore avoid disclosing its profits or income. This means, since 2019, it has not been possible to see how much money has been received by Cameron through the company.
Dodgy dealings, indeed … 