UK minister defends talks with Beijing despite China spy claims

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UK home secretary Yvette Cooper has defended her government’s attempts to bolster economic ties with China, in spite of new claims of a suspected Chinese spy infiltrating the British establishment.

Cooper said Britain continued to take a robust approach to any challenge “to our national security, our economic security, from China or other countries around the world”.

But she told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “With China, we also have to ensure we have that economic interaction and co-operation in place as well. It’s a complex arrangement.”

Cooper’s comments came after it emerged that a suspected Chinese spy had become a confidant of the Duke of York. Prince Andrew said he broke off contacts with him after being warned about their activities.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is attempting to build ties with Beijing in an effort to boost economic growth and he held talks with Xi Jingping, China’s president, at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro last month.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will travel to Beijing for an “economic and financial dialogue” next month, following on from a visit to the Chinese capital by foreign secretary David Lammy in October.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader, told the Financial Times that Starmer was trying to take Britain back 10 years to the “ridiculous George Osborne ‘golden era’”, a reference to the former Tory chancellor’s courtship of China.

Duncan Smith, who was sanctioned by China in 2021, said: “I don’t know what it takes for pompous prime ministers to realise China doesn’t care about us. They want us to buy their goods and they try to infiltrate our institutions.”

He claimed that Beijing saw Britain as the “soft underbelly” of the western security network knows as “the five eyes”, comprising the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

The alleged Chinese agent who had links with Prince Andrew has been excluded from Britain. An immigration tribunal hearing on Thursday upheld an earlier decision by the Home Office to ban the 50-year-old Chinese national.

MI5 had alleged they were a member of the Chinese Communist party working for the United Front Work Department, which gathers intelligence on behalf of the Chinese state, the tribunal heard.

Data downloaded by the UK Security Service from the man’s phone in November 2021, after he was stopped at the border, revealed his close relations to the late Queen Elizabeth’s second son, according to tribunal documents.

He had established “an unusual degree of trust” with the duke and had been authorised to act on his behalf “in engagements with potential partners and investors in China”, according to the documents.  

The Chinese national had also been an honorary member of the 48 Group Club, which was set up in the 1940s to promote trading ties between China and the UK and whose members include senior British politicians, civil servants, business executives and diplomats. 

In the process he had developed a high-level network of business, political and royal figures in the British establishment, which the tribunal heard “could be leveraged for political interference purposes by the CCP (including the UFWD) or the Chinese State.”   

Among former business clients with whom he worked as a consultant in China were GSK and the high-end car manufacturer McLaren.

He had also advised the China Minsheng Investment Group, a Chinese private equity company, on entering the UK market. The lawyer representing him during his appeal against exclusion emphasized the value to the UK of some of these activities.