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We've been very clear that the situation now is that China is behaving an increasingly

assertive way abroad, authoritarian at home, and it represents an epoch-defining challenge

and also the greatest state-based threat to our economic security.

So it's right that we take measures to protect ourselves.

That is Rishi Sunak, our Prime Minister, trying to work out this balance between taking the money

that Chinese trade offers this country and knowing

when to say no. Because last night they revealed British targets that were part of a wide

campaign of Chinese cyber attacks. The UK, the US, other countries jointly announced that China had been targeting political dissidents,

politicians, candidates, companies, journalists, academics, you name it, 10,000 malicious emails

and in the process gained access to the accounts and telephone records of millions and millions of citizens in the West.

So how should we deal with this threat and with this trading partner?

Welcome to the newsagents.

It's John. It's Emily.

And China. Be scared. Be very scared. Is it a national security threat? These are things that we have

been hearing for some time. And there was the whole row over Huawei and what role it should play

and rolling out the 5G network because there were suggestions that would impinge national

security. But yesterday there seemed to be a concerted move, not just by the British government,

but by other governments, the US as well. New Zealand as well. And about the threat that China

poses to national security through its tapping of phones, which sounds very old-fashioned,

but digital interference and hacking and whatever else it happens to be.

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