Spy Trial Collapse Highlights Shift in UK–China Relations Over a Decade

In 2015, British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Since then, London’s view of Beijing has gradually become more skeptical.

A general view of the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester, England, on Dec. 14, 2022. Cameron Smith/Getty Images

The recent collapse of the trial of two men accused of spying for China has highlighted how relations between London and Beijing have shifted in the past decade.

Along with questions about the degree of Beijing’s influence in the inner corridors of Westminster, at the heart of the recent controversy was the question of whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should be labeled an “enemy” of the UK or merely a strategic “threat.”