The Chinese threat: No. 10’s evidence leads to more questions

“It has all the makings of a gripping spy novel,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Two young men – one a parliamentary researcher, the other a teacher – are accused of passing secrets to China; but amid “swirling political intrigue” the case mysteriously collapses weeks before going to trial.

The government has been forced to deny that it intervened in the case to appease China, after the Crown Prosecution Service accused it of failing to provide the necessary evidence to prosecute both Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry. The two men had been charged under the Official Secrets Act, accused of passing parliamentary information to Beijing between 2021 and 2023. The current government and the last one have blamed each other for failing to officially designate China a threat to national security – without which, it is argued, the case would have been thrown out.

Yesterday, No. 10 released three witness statements from Keir Starmer’s deputy national security adviser outlining the UK’s handling of espionage allegations that led to the case collapsing. These clearly state that China has been carrying out “large scale espionage” against the UK, but stressed the need for a “positive economic relationship” with Beijing.

‘Who knew what?’

“Key questions remain,” said The Telegraph, including “why did Starmer do nothing to prevent the case collapsing?” and “did the Chinese government make any representations to the UK about this case?”

Another “crucial question”, said Tom Peck in his political sketch for The Times, is “who knew China had become a threat and by when?” That matter “took over Prime Minister’s Questions” yesterday despite MPs admitting privately that they “don’t actually understand” the issue.

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‘More confidence needed’

“You don’t need to be George Smiley to know that Beijing is doing everything it can to compromise our security,” said Michael Gove in the Daily Mail. Its spies “bribe, bully, honeytrap and eavesdrop” in order to acquire state secrets and intellectual property.

As well as a profound threat, China is also a crucial partner, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. So Labour’s balanced policy makes sense: engage, but “proceed with extreme caution”. What seems to be lacking is “confidence” in our values; there’s “an undue fear of ruffling China’s feathers”. Look at Germany. Its trading relationship with China is three times larger than ours, and yet last month a German national was imprisoned for spying for Beijing, without any trade bust-ups. Engagement is well and good, but with a nation as ruthless as China, “it works best in tandem with strength”.