In the meantime, Beijing has engaged in cyberattacks on British politicians, and may have paid other actors for years of faithful service and support. Chinese-manufactured security cameras have had to be stripped from “sensitive” sites. Universities cosy up to Beijing for funding, even as dual-use research leaks from leading British research facilities.

Of course, China is desperate to steal non-military technology too. Its campaign of economic warfare includes the erosion and destruction of Western rivals to its domestic firms. If a Chinese firm can produce at lower cost a product developed at great expense in the West, the balance of power shifts a little further Eastwards.

The FBI has judged the annual cost to the US economy of such counterfeit goods, pirated software and trade secrets theft at between $225bn and $600bn. Britain does not even know where to begin counting its losses.

It is beyond doubt, however, that the figure is significant. Last year, at Stanford University, the director of the UK’s Security Service told the assembled heads of the “Five Eyes” security and intelligence partners that his operations had recently identified 20,000 approaches to UK individuals by Chinese agents looking for sensitive information. It can be safely assumed that others succeeded; even the largest agency would struggle to cope with attacks on such an industrial scale.

Chinese economic aggression is an omnipresent reality. In far-flung regions of the world, Chinese state actors snap up resources, working towards near total control of the flows of critical minerals that are supposed to power our net zero economy.

On the high seas, the assertion of Chinese sovereignty over the area encompassed by the so-called nine-dash line threatens the critical naval choke points through which half the world’s merchant shipping flows. And in London, Westminster slumbers on, dismissing as bad dreams the warnings of the intelligence community. It is time we woke up.