Beijing has condemned evidence released by Sir Keir Starmer from an alleged Chinese espionage case, denouncing “British politicians’ attempts to smear and defame China”.
The Chinese embassy in London on Thursday warned the UK government that it should “stop undermining China-UK relations” after Starmer released witness statements from his deputy national security adviser in the high-profile case.
The statements detailed the UK’s evidence against two British men accused of spying on MPs for Beijing. The case collapsed last month, triggering a row over whether Starmer undermined the prosecution to avoid tensions with China as he seeks improved trade relations.
“The so-called testimony released by the UK after the prosecutor’s withdrawal of the case is filled with all kinds of groundless accusations against China. It is pure speculation and fabrication. We strongly condemn it,” the embassy said in a statement.
“British politicians’ attempts to smear and defame China will never succeed,” the embassy added, urging “relevant parties in the UK to . . . stop undermining China-UK relations”.
The broadside came after the head of MI5, Ken McCallum, said he was “frustrated” by the collapse of the prosecution in his first public remarks about the affair.
The Crown Prosecution Service last month withdrew espionage charges against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry.
It has said Starmer’s government failed to deliver enough evidence to successfully define China as an enemy or national security threat for the purposes of a prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.
Cash and Berry, both denied wrongdoing and were formally acquitted.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday at an annual speech aimed at outlining threats to the UK, McCallum, director-general of MI5, said: “Of course, I am frustrated when opportunities to prosecute national security-threatening activity are not followed through for whatever reason.”
He added: “MI5’s job distinctively is to detect and disrupt threats to UK national security, and I am pleased with how my teams have been doing that.”
He said his agency’s main task was not to bring prosecutions through the criminal courts: “Sometimes they might contribute to those prosecutions, but it’s not really our own stock in trade.”
<div data-o-component="o-expander" class="o-expander o-expander__info-box" data-o-expander-shrink-to="hidden" data-trackable="clip-info-box" data-o-expander-collapsed-toggle-text="Show video info” data-o-expander-expanded-toggle-text=”Hide video info“>
Asked whether China represented a national security threat to the UK, a judgment that sat at the heart of the espionage case, he declined to be drawn on “the overall balance of UK bilateral foreign policy relationship with China”, which he described as “perfectly legitimately a matter for the government”.
However, he added: “On the question ‘do Chinese state actors present UK national security threats?’ And the answer is, yes they do, every day.”
Lord Ken Macdonald KC, the former director of the CPS, told the Financial Times that witness statements in the case from deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins, released on Wednesday, were “more than adequate” to use at trial.
Matt Western, chair of the UK’s influential Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, told MPs they would hold an inquiry into the case’s collapse “as soon as we possibly can”.
Neil O’Brien, a Conservative MP who has had sanctions imposed by China, claimed there was evidence of political involvement in the witness statements.
He noted the third one submitted by Collins in August of this year echoed language on China that had appeared in Labour’s election manifesto.
O’Brien argued this was at odds with Starmer’s position that the witness statements only reflected the position on China of the previous Conservative government.
“The evidence includes lines from Labour’s manifesto,” O’Brien said. “They weakened the case. They make it less clear China is a threat to our national security.”
Other MPs, however, were critical of the CPS’s decision to drop the case.
“Given that all the deputy national security adviser witness statements referred to China as a threat I cannot understand why the CPS took the nuclear option of collapsing this case rather than leaving it to a jury,” said Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs select committee.
McCallum’s comments on the case came following a speech devoted to what he described as “a new era” of rising threats from states such as Russia, Iran, and China, driving what he called “the biggest shift in MI5’s mission since 9/11”.
He added MI5 had experienced a 35 per cent rise over the previous year in the number of individuals investigated for involvement in state threat activity. “Now, states are descending into ugly methods MI5 is more used to seeing in our terrorism network.” He declined to be more specific or break down the 35 per cent increase by country or type of activity.
“My teams are routinely uncovering attempts by state actors to commission surveillance, sabotage, arson, or physical violence, right here in the UK,” he said.
He referred specifically to six Bulgarian nationals jailed in May for spying for Russia, and five men convicted in July for setting fire to a warehouse in east London on orders from individuals linked to Russia’s paramilitary Wagner group.
“They were, in jargon, proxies,” said McCallum. “If you’re a proxy, you’re disposable. You may well be ghosted on payday. When you’re caught, you’ll be abandoned. You won’t feature in a prisoner exchange. You’re on your own.”
