Last week Britain’s security services issued an extraordinary warning to parliament naming Christine Lee, a well-known lawyer in London’s Chinese community, as an agent working covertly for the Chinese government. It is the first time MI5 has issued an “interference alert” relating to China and it cast a spotlight on the Labour MP Barry Gardiner, whose office received £584,177 worth of donations from Lee. Gardiner said he had been “liaising with our security services for a number of years about Christine Lee”. He added: “All the donations were properly reported…
Tag: House of Commons
Damian Hinds says there will be review of suspected Chinese agent’s activities
A comprehensive review is to be held into how a suspected Chinese agent was able to get so close to senior British politicians, the security minister, Damian Hinds, has said. MI5, the domestic intelligence agency, on Thursday took the unusual step of circulating a warning to MPs accusing Christine Lee – a prominent London-based solicitor – of being engaged in “political interference activities” on behalf of China’s ruling communist regime. The Chinese embassy rejected the claims, accusing the authorities of “smearing and intimidation” against the Chinese community in the UK,…
MI5 warning on lawyer ‘sends a clear message to China’s allies in UK’
The suggestion that a British Chinese solicitor has been allegedly working on behalf of China to influence UK politics adds further evidence of the bilateral relationship mutating from a “golden era” to an “ice age”. The latest development will clearly not help improve ties and, along with previous incidents, make the “China v the west” narrative increasingly look like an early cold war plot: suspected influence operations and – although not apparently the case here – alleged espionage as well as expulsion of personnel. On Thursday, the British political establishment…
MI5 accuses lawyer of trying to influence politicians on behalf of China
A security warning from MI5 has been circulated to MPs and peers accusing the lawyer Christine Lee of seeking to improperly influence parliamentarians on behalf of China’s ruling Communist party. The “interference alert” from the security service names and pictures Christine Ching Kui Lee as an individual who has allegedly “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party”. The notice added that the UFWD “is seeking to covertly interfere in UK politics through establishing links with established and aspiring…