More on the HKETO spy convictions

UK government statement upon summoning China’s ambassador after the conviction of two men for spying for China…

It was made clear that the UK will not tolerate any attempts by foreign states to intimidate, harass or harm individuals or communities in the UK, and that such activity constitutes a serious breach of the UK’s sovereignty. We will continue to use the full range of tools available to protect our security and hold China to account for actions which undermine our safety and democratic values. 

Standard report on China’s position…

China denounced on Friday convictions of two men in the United Kingdom for spying on Hong Kong dissidents as a “political farce”, accusing the country of “erroneous practices”.

…”The United Kingdom’s arrest and prosecution of Chinese citizens in the United Kingdom on groundless charges, its abuse of the law and manipulation of judicial procedures for conviction, its blatant support for anti-China and Hong Kong-destabilising elements and its unreasonable accusations and smears against China are a typical political farce,” Lin said.

“We urge the UK to correct its erroneous practices… and safeguard the hard-won positive momentum of China-UK relations,” he added.

…An earlier statement on Thursday by an unnamed Chinese embassy spokesperson in London said that Yuen’s conviction in particular “is nothing but a political move of abusing the law and manipulating the judicial process by the UK side”.

The “sole purpose” of the decision is to “embolden those anti-China elements who are hiding in the UK and bent on destabilising Hong Kong, and to smear the Chinese government”, the statement added, calling it a “so-called verdict”.

“We deplore (the conviction of Yuen) and have made solemn representations with the UK side,” the Chinese embassy statement said, calling on London to “immediately stop the anti-China political manipulation”.

The Chinese statements: support the convicted man employed by the Hong Kong authorities; declare the UK residents who were subjects of the surveillance to be enemies of Beijing; and do not claim that Beijing was uninvolved.

The Global Times story is slightly more subtle…

During the Cold War, a very typical political pattern between the UK, the Soviet Union, and Eastern European countries was the constant arrest of “spies”, the search for “suspicious individuals” and the construction of related accusations. Today in the UK, from some members of Parliament to certain government departments, this “Cold War mentality” remains quite evident, Cui Hongjian, professor at the Academy of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Friday. 

The UK security and intelligence agencies have been hyping so-called “spying activities” from China in the last several years.

HKFP on the Hong Kong government’s denial of any involvement…

“From the outset, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government has been clearly stating that the allegations in this case are absolutely not related to the HKSAR Government and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London (London ETO), nor are we party to the case,” a government statement sent to the media on Friday morning read. 

Kevin Yam on that denial…

The Hong Kong Government’s response has been that it is not a party to and has nothing to do with this case. And yet, one of the convicted men was the Office Manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, while both men had their legal costs covered by the Hong Kong Government. It is difficult to imagine the Hong Kong Government being willing to fund defence costs if it had nothing to do with the whole case. It is now untenable for the HKETO to deny that it is every bit as much of a spy hub as its masters at the Chinese Embassy.

And a comparison of NatSec trials…

…The trial of these two men and the national security trials in Hong Kong could not be more different. The two men were released on bail pending trial. They were able to get the cream of the London criminal bar to defend them while the likes of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong were denied legal representation of his choice. They were tried by jury before a judge that was not a Government hand-picked judge who can be “trusted” to rule the right way. 

The Guardian quotes Nathan Law…

In a message in which Wai used a derogatory term for pro-democracy protesters, the court heard that the dual British-Chinese national had boasted he was able to tally up monthly totals of “cockroaches” entering the UK.

“He had access to the system that contains information on us,” said Law. “I think there’s a part of the evidence showing that he used those systems to search for addresses or any other sensitive personal information for me.

“I can only do so much to protect myself. I can try to spot anyone following me and take different routes and do different things to sort of like get rid of them. I can hide my digital footprints. But I can’t not give details to the [British] government, and if their databases are so accessible and there are no safeguards to protect people like us, who are obviously targets of intelligence and secret operations from hostile governments, then that is a worry.”

Bloomberg on the HKETO’s role…

HKETO office manager Bill Yuen Chung-biu, 65, and another man, Peter Wai Chi-Leung, 38, were convicted at the Old Bailey in London on Thursday of assisting a foreign intelligence service. Yuen, a retired Hong Kong police superintendent, gave tasks to Wai, a UK Border Force officer and City of London Police special constable, that included carrying out surveillance on Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners in Britain, the court was told. Wai, who used his access to the UK immigration database to track the dissidents, was paid from the HKETO bank account. 

…The convictions underline how the role of these once-apolitical trade bureaus has evolved since China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020. They call into question the future not only of the London office but of 14 other HKETOs around the world, including the three US branches in New York, San Francisco and Washington DC.

In the SCMP, various people rush to assure us that the ETO in London won’t be shut down. One says the UK values old ties with Hong Kong too much. But as the Bloomberg piece suggests, the ETOs around the world don’t come out of this looking good. Following the erosion of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ insulation between Hong Kong and the Mainland in recent years (remember ‘high degree of autonomy’?) host countries were already increasingly questioning the offices’ status. And now this.