An alleged Chinese spy who cultivated close ties with Prince Andrew said Monday he has done “nothing wrong or unlawful” as Britain’s government faces questions about what it is doing to thwart security threats from China.

Hackers linked to the Chinese government launched a sweeping, state-backed operation that targeted U.S. officials, journalists, corporations, pro-democracy activists and the U.K.’s election watchdog.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has declared that the U_K_’s “golden era” of ties with China was over in his first major speech on foreign policy, and described China’s growing authoritarianism as a “systemic challenge to our values and interests.”.

A Uyghur organization and a human rights group are taking the U.K. government to court to challenge Britain’s failure to block the import of cotton products associated with forced labor and other abuses in China’s far western Xinjiang region.

The two candidates vying to be Britain’s next prime minister have sparred over how to help families struggling with the soaring cost of living in a testy televised debate.

Britain promised to hit Russia with “powerful” sanctions over its military confrontation with Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has received a questionnaire from London’s Metropolitan Police as part of the investigation into parties in Downing Street during COVID lockdowns.

China’s ambassador to Britain has been barred from Parliament and told he could not enter the building for a talk he was scheduled to give.

Residents wearing masks pass by government propaganda with slogans some of which read "Forever follow the Party" and "China's Ethnicities One Family" in the city of Aksu in western China's Xinjiang region on Thursday, March 18, 2021. China on Friday announced sanctions on British individuals and entities following the U.K.'s joining the EU and others in sanctioning Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)BEIJING – China slapped sanctions on several British politicians and organizations Friday after the U.K. joined the European Union and others in sanctioning Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. China has rejected all criticism over its policies in Xinjiang, along with its crackdown on opposition figures in Hong Kong and threats against Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy China claims as its own territory. Cotton and other agricultural products form a major component of the local economy in vast but thinly populated Xinjiang.

A coalition of human-rights groups has met with the International Olympic Committee over calls to pull the 2022 Winter Olympics out of Beijing. That was a constant theme at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Beijing wound up with the 2022 Winter Olympics almost by accident. The 2008 Olympics were supposed to change China. “In 2008 the international community strongly believed that bringing the Olympics to China would open up China,” Arkin said.