London Spy Case Fuels Call to Close Hong Kong Trade Offices

A general view of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London on July 21, 2020.(Luke Dray/Getty Images)

UK rights activists are calling for the closure of Hong Kong trade offices following spy allegations involving a trade office manager in London. He was charged under the UK’s new National Security Act with assisting foreign intelligence services and foreign interference on May 13.

Hong Kong Watch, a non-governmental organization monitoring the conditions of human rights, freedoms, and the rule of law in Hong Kong, advocates that countries gradually cancel Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (HKETO), just like they cancelled another Beijing-funded program, Confucius Institutes.

“It makes no sense to continue to give HKETOs special diplomatic privileges, especially as, in effect, they now function as an arm of the Chinese embassy,” Benedict Rogers, co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong Watch, said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

Anouk Wear, Hong Kong Watch’s research and policy adviser, also highlighted the HKETOs’ ties to Beijing, warning that the communist regime will increasingly use these offices to promote propaganda abroad.

“We must see these institutions for what they really are—outposts of the Chinese Communist Party under another name—and we must review whether they still serve the original purpose and need the diplomatic privileges and immunities they have,” Mr. Wear said in an April statement.

Hong Kong trade offices in London can be traced back to the British colonial era.

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The Hong Kong government has 14 offices overseas, including in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Bangkok, Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Dubai, Jakarta, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, and London. Many staffers have diplomatic privileges and immunities.

Seven parliamentarians have also called on the UK government to review the status of the London HKETO.

They are crossbench peer Lord Alton of Liverpool, Labour MPs Siobhain McDonagh and Fabian Hamilton, Tory peers Baroness Meyer and Lord Shinkwin, and Green’s Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle.

“The London HKETO was set up to further the economic and trade interests of Hong Kong,” their statement reads. “If employees of the HKETO were operating as accomplices of transnational repression, beyond their legitimate remit of economics and trade, the option of closing the London HKETO should be considered.”

Benedict Rogers, British human rights activist and co-founder of Hong Kong Watch. (Simon Gross/The Epoch Times)

Potential Turning Point

Late last year, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a bipartisan bill aimed at closing three HKETOs in the United States, citing the former British colony’s loss of a high degree of autonomy under communist rule. The proposed legislation is ready for consideration by the full House; it has yet to get on the House floor vote schedule in a Congress busy with resolving budgeting issues to avoid government shutdowns and provide military assistance to Ukraine and Israel.

As for the UK government’s stance on its HKETO, Chung Kim-wah, former deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (HKPORI), the city’s leading pollster, told The Epoch Times that in the past, Hong Kong people in the UK called for the review or removal of HKETO’s privileges, but the British government and Parliament did not officially respond to the appeal. The latest charges might be a turning point in the British government’s views.

Mr. Chung, who fled Hong Kong in 2022 and is now settled in the UK, says this incident would be an “indicator” in observing the stance of British politics.

On May 13, three men were charged under the UK’s National Security Act 2023 with assisting foreign intelligence services and foreign interference. The new law gives the government additional powers to prosecute foreign agents.

One man charged by the court has been identified as Chung Biu Yuen (who has no relation to Chung Kim-wah), 63, an office manager at the London HKETO. He and two other men, Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38, and Matthew Trickett, 37, allegedly conducted surveillance operations and forced entry into a UK residence. The three were granted bail at a May 13 hearing.

On May 19, Mr. Trickett was found dead by a member of the public in Grenfell Park near where he lived. Thames Valley police said his death is “unexplained” and an investigation is ongoing. British prosecutors dropped the espionage charges against Mr. Trickett on May 24. The other two men are due for a trial next February.

UK ‘More Wary of Security Threats’ From the CCP

The spying charges came amid growing tensions between London and Beijing. UK officials have been increasingly vocal in warning about security threats from China.

After this most recent case, the British government summoned the Chinese ambassador to Britain for an official reprimand.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said Britain is facing an increasingly dangerous future because of threats from an “axis of authoritarian states,” which he named as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

In March, the British government publicly accused CCP cyberespionage operations of targeting the country’s election committee and politicians critical of Beijing.

Anne Keast-Butler, head of the GCHQ, has described communist China as an “‘epoch-defining’ challenge.”

She said that dealing with the scale and complexity of the cyber threat posed by the Chinese regime was a top priority for her agency, which devotes “more resource to China than any other single mission.”

In April, a UK parliamentary researcher and another man were charged with spying for China after allegedly providing information that could be “useful to an enemy.”

The National Security and Investment Act, passed by the UK in 2021, allows for the review of inbound investments. In its first year in effect, more than half of the deals challenged involved Chinese buyers.

“British intelligence services and other experts have become more wary of security threats from China, which is why more of these incidents are coming to light—a little late in some cases, but better late than never,” Mr. Rogers told The Epoch Times.

Terri Wu contributed to this report.