Tobias Ellwood: An age limit of 21 would protect our kids from toxic Chinese vapes but also boost our security

Tobias Ellwood is a Former Chair of the Defence Select Committee and a former Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Minister.

 When Britain talks about China, the conversation tends to drift towards the familiar.

Espionage. Cyber intrusion. The looming new embassy in central London. Military posturing around Taiwan. The erosion of democracy in Hong Kong. Human rights abuses.

These are serious issues. They are visible, recognisable threats, the kind we have faced before. We have committees, strategies, and institutions designed to deal with them.

But by focusing so heavily on what we recognise, we are missing what matters most.

China’s most effective influence on the UK today does not come via diplomats, soldiers, or spies. It comes through economics, through supply chains, through the everyday products that quietly shape our lives. It is slow, legal-looking, and largely ignored.

National security is no longer just about tanks, troops, and intelligence agencies. It is about standards, dependencies, and control of the systems we rely on every day. When we define security too narrowly, we leave ourselves exposed in plain sight.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the explosion of illegal disposable vapes across Britain.

They are everywhere, sold openly at pocket-money prices, often in blatant breach of UK regulations. This is not accidental. Many are manufactured in poorly regulated factories in China, falsely labelled, and pushed into the UK market via organised criminal networks.

These products frequently exceed legal nicotine limits. Some pose fire risks. Others leak toxic chemicals. They are addictive, environmentally damaging, and disproportionately used by young people.

Local councils and Trading Standards are overwhelmed. Enforcement becomes reactive, not strategic. Shops are shut down, headlines are written, and the problem returns a week later. Nobody seriously believes you win the drugs war by arresting street-level dealers alone.

This is usually framed as a public health or consumer protection issue, and on one level it is. But it is also a question of national resilience. When vast volumes of unsafe products can be funnelled into the UK at speed, bypassing regulation and enforcement, that is a strategic vulnerability. Harm is inflicted without a hostile act ever being declared.

This is why legislation like the Tobacco and Vapes Bill matters beyond its headline aims. It is presented as a health measure, but it is also an opportunity to reassert control over a market that has clearly slipped the net. Raising the legal age for purchasing vapes to 21 would be a practical step, reducing uptake and making enforcement simpler and more credible. That opportunity is currently being missed.

Clear, enforceable rules matter. They reduce loopholes. They signal that Britain will not allow safety standards to be bypassed for profit. That is what resilience looks like. And this is not just a British problem. European officials have already acknowledged that the continent is failing to protect consumers from the growing flow of unsafe goods entering from China.

The problem is compounded by inconsistency. In an integrated economy, resilience is only as strong as the weakest link. Differing standards across Europe create gaps that organised networks exploit with ease.

The same logic applies to infrastructure. We have already had this debate over telecoms and 5G. Yet the lesson appears not to have stuck.

Across Europe, fleets of Chinese-made electric buses are increasingly common. They are cheap, environmentally attractive, and an easy choice for councils under pressure to decarbonise on tight budgets. But these vehicles are digitally connected, reliant on software, and remotely updateable. Security experts have raised concerns about the presence of kill-switch capabilities that could, in theory, disable fleets from afar.

In Norway, authorities have already identified remote access to battery systems that can be switched off from China. Whether such features are intentional or an accident of design almost misses the point. The mere existence of that capability, and the uncertainty surrounding it, should give any responsible government pause.

Transport is critical national infrastructure. We learnt with telecoms that allowing essential systems to depend on external control creates leverage, whether or not it is ever exercised. Ignoring who owns and controls the software that keeps a city moving would be reckless.

These risks persist because our system is not designed to spot slow-burning threats. Spy scandals grab headlines. Economic infiltration does not. Responsibility is fragmented. Regulators focus on compliance, not strategy. Local authorities are left to pick up the pieces, overwhelmed by illegal goods on the high street or infrastructure choices made under financial pressure.

While Britain struggles to keep its head above water, China plays the long game. It relies on scale, patience, and regulatory asymmetry to flood markets and normalise dependency. Over time, standards erode, domestic capacity weakens, and leverage quietly accumulates.

This is not an argument against trade, nor a call for isolation. Open markets matter. But they only function when rules are enforced. Infrastructure, public health, and the exposure of young people to addictive products are not politically neutral.

A serious response would treat standards enforcement as a matter of national security. Trade, industrial policy, and security strategy must be aligned. Resilience is not protectionism. It is prudence.

If we only defend Britain from the threats we recognise, we will lose to the ones we don’t.