How China’s deadly spies are strangling Britain like ‘snakes on a chandelier’

The shocking case of the spy at Westminster is a sinister reminder of China’s espionage in the UK, writes Michael Sheridan, a world expert on Anglo-Sino relations. And I’ve witnessed first hand the fear China has exported to Britain, and to the very heart of our democracy...

The United Front is the elusive agency behind most of China’s efforts to weaken the democracies (Getty Images)

Early this summer, I was at Westminster for an event to support freedom in Hong Kong. I exchanged glum views with the last governor, Lord Patten of Barnes, and the security minister, Tom Tugendhat, who then took the stand to speak out about China. At the back of the room, a gaggle of young Hong Kong students listened with keen attention.

Afterwards, I spoke to them. None would give their names. They did not feel safe even inside the mother of parliaments. The Chinese regime, they explained, had informers everywhere. Nobody knew who was reporting to it. If identified, their families back in Hong Kong could be targeted for reprisals. For students from mainland China, retaliation would be guaranteed and immediate.

Even after decades of reporting on China, I was mildly shocked. I wondered if these smart youngsters were being a bit too nervous. Now it seems that their wariness was not so much paranoia as common sense. A veteran sinologist, Perry Link, once compared the Chinese state to “the anaconda in the chandelier”. It may not slide down to grip you in its coils, but you always know it is there. In effect, the regime has exported its psychology to Britain.

This week we learned that two men, one a parliamentary researcher, have been arrested under the Official Secrets Act on suspicion of spying for China and bailed. The researcher denied any wrongdoing and the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, warned MPs against statements which might prejudice a case.

The news sent a shock around Westminster. I do not know why. Our security services focused on Chinese influence operations long before most politicians – apart from a few brave souls like Tugendhat and Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader – wanted to hear about it.

Like Alicia Kearns, the outspoken chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the two men were undermined by snide suggestions in Whitehall that they did not get “the nuances.”

The Labour Party has been lamentably inert on the subject. Its former spinmeister, Peter Mandelson, even slunk off to Beijing recently to see his old chums from the Central Party School, which trains Xi Jinping’s cadres in the better management of tyranny. Let’s hope this does not presage a weaselly “realism” from Sir Keir Starmer’s government-in-waiting.

Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, explained on the BBC today that Chinese intelligence works on a broader spectrum than the West’s services. Its core agencies are the Ministry of State Security and the department of the People’s Liberation Army. But, said Sir Alex, a third significant hand is the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party. This clunkily named organ was praised by Chairman Mao Zedong as “our magic weapon.”

The United Front is the elusive agency behind most of China’s efforts to weaken the democracies. Its weapon is the tranquilliser, not the gun. When MI5 named the Anglo-Chinese solicitor Christine Lee as an “agent of influence” for China it laid out the hallmarks of a classic United Front operation. The curious thing to most people is how innocuous and bland it all was. What could be the harm in donating money to a Labour MP, Barry Gardiner, and paying court to David Cameron and Teresa May in the cause of “building bridges?”

The aim of such efforts is “normalisation.” By treating the regime and its deeds as just like any other nation state, the criminal becomes normal. It allows business as usual, sometimes conducted by folk who would happily have sold you autobahn bonds in 1936.

There is a whole school of academics drilled to lecture us that critics of the dictatorship “lack nuance.” Perhaps this explains why, when I looked into the backgrounds of six “scholars” invited to speak at Cambridge University in the years before the Covid pandemic, it took little effort to tie every one of their institutions to the Ministry of State Security.

One never knows whether extremely clever people are unscrupulous or just naive. My old Cambridge college, Jesus, last year published a review of its China centre after criticism that it was too cosy with the regime. It decided to reform the centre’s governance, to make its aims and funding “fully transparent” and to bring in independent scholars to ensure a “bold and active” programme “not shying away from controversial topics.”

This is still a work in progress. But it is notable that the centre’s well-connected deputy director, Dr Jin Zhang, vanished back to Beijing during the pandemic, where she has turned up at a think tank under China’s state council, the country’s cabinet. Maybe Chinese students at the university can breathe a little easier this term.

The Cambridge story is far from over, but this might be a model of how to strike a balance between engagement and vigilance. It is also a good moment to retire the word “nuance”. The Chinese state and its agents do not do “nuance”, if you ever end up in their hands.