UK government faces backlash over dropped Chinese espionage case

Tensions are growing in Britain over the “Chinese spy” case, continuing to escalate following allegations that the British government dropped the prosecution.

Most recently, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum expressed his disappointment over the collapse of the Chinese espionage case, asserting that Beijing poses a threat to the United Kingdom “every day.”

McCallum stated that the Security Service works “very hard” to make convictions possible, “so it is disappointing when they do not happen.”

As the controversy over the dropped espionage case intensified, Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced questions about how a sentence from the Labour Party manifesto found its way into a key witness statement.

On Wednesday night, the government released three witness statements from Matthew Collins, revealing how his testimony in the espionage case had changed over two years.

Collins’s final statement concluded with a reference to the United Kingdom wanting to “co-operate where we can, compete where we must and challenge where we are forced to.” This phrase was taken verbatim from the 2024 Labour Party manifesto.

The Conservatives, who accuse the government of undermining the case to appease Beijing, believe the inclusion of the Labour Party’s China policy in the document is evidence of political interference.

Collins, who testified in the Chinese espionage case, said that the United Kingdom is committed to building “positive relations” with Beijing, despite being asked to prove that China is a threat.

Starmer, his national security adviser Jonathan Powell, and Powell’s deputy Matthew Collins—the individuals who wrote the witness statement that prosecutors blame for the case’s collapse—may be forced to testify publicly after two parliamentary committees announced they are launching an inquiry into the scandal.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, is also facing questions about why the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case. Parkinson said the decision was made due to a lack of sufficient evidence that China poses a threat to the UK.

The MI5 chief made a rare intervention into government affairs the day after the three witness statements written by Collins were released in the case of former parliamentary aides Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, who were accused of leaking classified information to Beijing.

McCallum described Collins as “a professional of high integrity and significant qualities,” adding, “I am of course disappointed when opportunities to prosecute activity that threatens our national security, for whatever reason, are not brought to a conclusion.”

Delivering his annual speech as MI5’s director general, the spy chief added, “I would invite everyone not to lose sight of the fact that this is a serious setback for the UK’s national security.”

When asked if China constitutes a national security threat, he replied, “Do Chinese state actors pose a threat to the UK’s national security? The answer is of course yes, they do, every day.”

The MI5 chief also revealed that the security service had thwarted a threat from China last week.

The Chinese embassy in London retaliated in its first comment on the diplomatic crisis, calling the allegations “completely fabricated and malicious slander.”

An embassy spokesperson said, “China never interferes in the internal affairs of other countries and always acts openly and honestly. As the Chinese proverb says, ‘The superior man is confident and at ease; the inferior man is always anxious.’ The attempts by some British politicians to smear China are doomed to fail.”

Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch said the government provided the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) with “a nice statement about how wonderful China is” instead of the information needed to prosecute the case, adding, “This is a shameful situation.”

The CPS had asked Collins, who wrote the main witness statement in 2023 when the Conservatives were in power, to provide two more witness statements to “strengthen” some of his previous assertions.

However, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp stated that he found the two statements Collins made after Labour came to power to be “weaker” than his initial one.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Prince Andrew met with a senior Chinese Communist Party official at the center of the espionage case at least three times.

The Duke of York met with Cai Qi between 2018 and 2019, a period that coincides with when Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry were allegedly recruited as spies.

Cai was believed to have received the information that Berry allegedly sent through parliamentary researcher Cash.

In May 2018, Cai led a delegation to meet with British officials, including the Duke of York, then-Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Scotland’s then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

The following month, Andrew traveled to China and met with Cai and President Xi. According to Chinese state media, he told other senior CCP members during the visit that the UK wanted to strengthen technological cooperation with China.

According to China’s official government website, the duke and Cai met for a third time in April 2019, where they agreed to build a “golden era” in China-UK relations.

Cai is reported to have praised Andrew’s work, claiming his “Pitch@Palace” initiative had “supported nearly 2,000 entrepreneurial projects worldwide and its influence is growing.”