What difference is the revelation that China was behind two cyber attacks – on the Electoral Commission and UK parliamentarians – really going to make when it comes to the government’s approach to Beijing? Oliver Dowden told MPs today that the two attacks ‘demonstrate a clear and persistent pattern of behaviour that signal hostile intent from China.’

But he came in for criticism for the scale of the government response – just two individuals and one entity associated with the attack have been sanctioned, and there is a promise to continue to ‘call out’ this activity in the strongest terms. The Chinese ambassador is also being summoned to respond to the announcement.

The deputy prime minister faced sustained questioning from opposition MPs about Lord Cameron’s links to China. Shadow cabinet office minister Pat McFadden asked whether there had been any investigation of the claims in an Intelligence and Security Committee report that Cameron’s job as president of a UK-China investment fund was ‘in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment, as well as to the broader China brand.’ Others, including Chris Bryant, complained once again that Cameron does not come to the Commons to answer questions.

The criticism didn’t just come from Labour, though. Inevitably, plenty of China-sceptic Tory backbenchers had plenty to say, with Tim Loughton – one of the MPs sanctioned by Beijing – telling Dowden he was ‘underwhelmed’ by what he’d just heard, and Suella Braverman arguing that China should be put in the ‘enhanced sphere’ under the National Security Act.

Dowden’s defence of the UK’s response and its wider stance on China underlined that there is still ambiguity within government about how to deal with Beijing. He argued that the measures announced today were ‘a first step’, adding: ‘The government will respond proportionately at all times in relation to the facts in front of it. No one should be in any doubt about the government’s determination to face down and deal with these threats to our national security from wherever they come’. Dowden also said that the government did not ‘accept that China’s relationship with the United Kingdom is set on a predetermined course.’

MPs also used the session to express their wider anxieties about threats to democracy and British institutions. Vicky Ford sounded genuinely emotional as she told the Chamber that she was frightened, not least because one of her neighbours David Amess had been murdered at his constituency surgery. She complained that last week, security guards she had been told she should have at her own surgeries did not turn up. This was the second time this year this had happened. Michael Ellis, who is always keen to find a royal angle to any story, made a pertinent observation that at least some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Princess of Wales in recent weeks may have been driven by hostile states whose leaders were hated by their own people.

Dowden agreed to stay for longer to answer questions from colleagues, but most MPs will have come away from his statement with little clarity on whether the government is changing its stance towards Beijing, other than that it will depend on what happens next. Which doesn’t seem particularly decisive.