Christopher Berry, one of the suspects in the Chinese espionage case, was carrying a “suitcase full of cash” when he was stopped by police under terrorism laws after flying into Heathrow from China on Feb 2, 2023. He was discovered with £4,000 when he was intercepted at the airport. The money is believed to have been given to him by his Chinese intelligence handler, known only as “Alex”. It is unclear whether the cash was retained by police, or what currency it was in. Berry was the subject of a port stop under Schedule 3 Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which is used by police when there is suspicion of “hostile activity” involving a foreign state. His phone and laptop were taken by officers and later revealed his connection to Chris Cash, a parliamentary researcher from Edinburgh, who was also accused of spying for China, as well as a person assessed to be a Chinese intelligent agent. Prosecutors alleged the Chinese agent commissioned at least 34 reports from Berry on subjects of political interest, ten of which were deemed prejudicial to national security. British prosecutors suspected that Cai Qi, a confidant of Xi Jinping and China’s fifth most senior official, was in receipt of intelligence from Westminster as part of the espionage case. On Oct 18, the Metropolitan Police said: “A man in his thirties was subject to a stop at Heathrow airport on 2 February 2023 under Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. He was not arrested and inquiries continued.” The evidence was due to be presented by the prosecution in the trial against the two men which collapsed last month, leading to outrage from ministers, MPs and the police. ===== Sir Keir Starmer was announcing a shake-up of Downing Street after a challenging first year in office when invitations popped up on computer screens across Whitehall. Up to 20 senior mandarins and spy chiefs were summoned to a meeting in the Cabinet Office chaired by Jonathan Powell, the prime minister’s national security adviser, on Sep 1. The agenda? To discuss the looming trial of two alleged Chinese spies operating in Westminster. Two weeks later, the prosecution would collapse, prompting a furious row between MPs, the prime minister and the director of public prosecutions (DPP). The meeting had been instigated at the request of Sir Oliver Robbins, the permanent undersecretary of the Foreign Office. Those present included Sir Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary; Dame Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary of the Home Office; Sir Ken McCallum, head of MI5; Doug Wilson, director-general of the attorney-general’s office; and a phalanx of senior officials from the Foreign Office including the China desk head, Dan Chugg. Seated at the table next to them was Powell’s deputy, Matthew Collins, the government’s sole witness for the prosecution. His failure to state in his evidence that China was an “ongoing” threat to national security, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, has been cited by the DPP as a reason for the trial’s collapse. Collins, whose latest statement included words taken directly from Labour’s manifesto committing it to a “positive relationship” with China, is understood to have acknowledged privately that the decision not to provide the evidence requested by the CPS had been “political”, which contradicts claims made in the Commons by Starmer and ministers last week. “He [Collins] isn’t politically connected. There is no way that he would have made those statements, including the passages from the Labour manifesto, without ministerial direction.” The general theme of the “unusual” meeting was “how the UK’s relationship with China was going to be damaged by this case”, which caused “some nervousness” amongst attendees because the trial was due to begin a month later. To allay concerns, it was disclosed that Collins would base his evidence on the government’s recently published 1/n https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/china-spy-suspect-suitcase-cash-vjl0wmccj…

National Security Strategy, led by Powell, which gave a balanced view of China. It stopped short of referring to it as an “enemy” state. “There had been very little chatter about the case until late August, when, suddenly, it appeared to be at the top of Ollie’s [Robbins] agenda. It was like the Foreign Office had belatedly woken up to the fact that this trial was going to be a big problem for the UK’s relationship with China. There was clearly concern about China’s response to it and questions were being asked about it.” The main “action point” was for the attorney-general’s office, which is in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), to relay some of the concerns raised with the prosecution. A government spokeswoman said: “It is untrue to say that concerns about the evidence were given to the CPS following this meeting.” The source added: “There was absolutely no political interference with the evidence provided in this case. That evidence had already been submitted before the meeting.” ===== On Sep 15, the case against Chris Cash and his friend Chris Berry collapsed. Cash used to work as a China specialist for two Conservative backbenchers, Tom Tugendhat and Alicia Kearns. He had a parliamentary pass and was plugged into Westminster’s gossip network during 2022 — a year of Conservative turmoil in Westminster, three prime ministers and future policy uncertainty over China. During that time, Cash was in close contact with Berry, who was then a teacher based in Hangzhou, eastern China, where the Britons had met 5 years earlier. They discussed politics constantly, using an encrypted app. Cash was alleged to be Berry’s source, passing on information from Westminster in voice notes and messages that were recovered by the Met Police’s SO15 unit, which investigates espionage threats. The CPS claim a “Chinese intelligence agent” commissioned at least 34 reports from Berry on subjects of political interest, ten of which were deemed prejudicial to national security. In evidence due to be presented to the jury, it is also alleged Berry met Cai Qi, an ally of Xi often described as his unofficial chief of staff, in July 2022. Berry is said to have told Cash, who was at the time working for the China Research Group of Conservative MPs, about the meeting in a voice note. Cash responded: “You’re in spy territory now.” Cai’s alleged role in the espionage case has shocked and alarmed China experts. Witnesses in the case are also furious, and increasingly anxious, that they have not been told what information about them was said to have been handed to China by the alleged spies. Cash was charged with breaching section one of the 1911 Official Secrets Act (OSA) between Jan 2022 and Feb 2023. The allegations involve obtaining, collecting, recording, publishing or communicating notes, documents or information which might be, or were intended to be, directly or indirectly useful to an enemy. Berry was accused of committing the same offence between Dec 2021 and Feb 2023. Both men deny the charges. The CPS asked Collins to provide evidence that China represented an “ongoing threat”, according to a source familiar with the discussions. It followed his testimony in an earlier case against three Bulgarians accused of spying for Russia, a country he described in his evidence as an “acute ongoing threat”. “The CPS believed that his inability to say something similar was a problem,” the source said. “Collins was given over 14 months [since Labour came to power] to come up with a form of words and he didn’t — despite the fact that the CPS had assumed it would be a formality.” It’s an “open secret” in the Cabinet Office for months that CPS requests for Collins to provide firmer evidence had not been forthcoming despite claims he had acted unilaterally and was given “full freedom to provide evidence without interference”. ===== For two weeks after the September meeting, Whitehall was awash with rumours that the case was “wobbling”. 2/n

During this period, it is understood that Shabana Mahmood, the newly appointed home secretary, had heard that the case might collapse and had made representations to ensure the evidence put forward was as “strong as possible”. Other ministers were also told in advance of the risk to the case, including Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, although sources close to him dispute the claim. “It’s fair to say that when Hermer was told the charges were being dropped he didn’t violently object to it,” said one source. “Hermer is a bit of a wet, squishy Londoner who hasn’t left the capital for some time. He thinks a lot of this stuff about China being an enemy is a bit of a confected nonsense by the Tories.” It was not until Sep 12 that ministers, including Starmer, were officially told the case would not proceed. No efforts to save the case were made during the three days between the notification of the charges being dropped and the announcement. Many in Whitehall are pointing the finger at the Foreign Office. A senior Whitehall source said: “There was engagement with Foreign Office officials in a lot of meetings that showed how concerned they were when they realised that OSA 1911 would mean we would be defining China as the enemy. The meetings happened in late August [or] early September, when the DPP was pushing and pushing for some kind of wording.” “In the discussions with the Foreign Office officials, it was clear they didn’t want to piss off China, given all the discussions around trade and Jetco [Joint Economic and Trade Committee], and if they did piss off China, it was Cai Qi they were worried about upsetting.” “The story that has not yet been written is how the independence of our judiciary has been undermined by a group of senior civil servants.” However, questions remain about how senior Whitehall mandarins could supposedly act in isolation from any political oversight: ministers are accountable for all decisions taken by civil servants. One Whitehall source said: “If I am jumping up and down like Ollie Robbins was, it is normally because the secretary of state is on my case.” Many opposition MPs who have worked in government do not believe the government’s position. Tugendhat, the former security minister, told the Commons last week: “Given that the government’s position is that the bureaucrats run the government and are in charge of everything, may we dissolve this House and save the taxpayer the money, because clearly this is not a democracy any more?” Collins’s refusal to label China an “ongoing” threat in his evidence was thrown into sharp contrast last week by the MI5 boss. Asked specifically about whether he thought China did pose the threat level required by the prosecution, McCallum said: “Do Chinese state actors present a UK national security threat? And the answer is, of course, yes, they do every day.” Starmer claimed that responsibility for the case’s failure rested with the Conservatives, who were in power at the time of the alleged offences between 2021 and 2023, and they had stopped short of designating China a threat. Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, is facing questions over his decision to halt the prosecution. Last week, he told select committee chairs at a private meeting the evidence was only “5 per cent off” what was required. Many in Whitehall believe his days could be numbered. One MP who attended the meeting with him said he looked like a “broken man”. It is understood that Parkinson had been told by the prosecuting barrister Tom Little that the evidence provided in Collins’ third statement in August was not strong enough and feared the case would not make it before a jury. ===== On Oct 17, the row appeared to have further repercussions when Robbins visited Beijing on “long-planned government business”. At the top of his list of aims was an attempt to persuade the Chinese authorities to allow the UK to build a new embassy in Beijing. 3/n

During his visit, however, Beijing criticized further delays to a planning decision for its proposed mega-embassy in London, which had been imminent but has been pushed back to Dec 10. Beijing has been trying to redevelop the former Royal Mint buildings since it bought the site in 2018. The project is highly controversial amid warnings that China could use the embassy as a base for espionage and it is being built above sensitive cabling linked to financial centres in London. According to a well-placed source, Zheng Zeguang, the Chinese ambassador, told senior Foreign 0ffice officials in Dec 2022, days after Tower Hamlets council had refused planning permission for the new embassy, that China would not resubmit its application unless it was given assurances that it would be approved. After Robbins and Chinese officials met in Beijing, Lin Jian, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, told a news conference that the UK had shown “disregard for contractual spirit, acting in bad faith and without integrity”. He said China had acted with “the utmost sincerity and patience” and the UK should “immediately fulfil its obligations and honour its commitments otherwise the British side shall bear all consequences”. Lin’s comments will only fuel suspicion that Labour agreed a private deal with China over its mega-embassy. A senior Whitehall source said: “When you look at what has happened with the embassy and the espionage case, it is hard to draw any other conclusion than it is both cock-up and conspiracy.” 4/n