The scandal of the collapse of the Chinese spy case in September and its fallout over the past few months has highlighted the deep-rooted systemic failures of Britain’s dealings with China. From Sir Percy Cradock’s insistence on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hardmen being “men of their word”, to David Cameron’s “Golden Era” of Chinese relations, to Rachael Reeves belief in a “level playing field” in her more recent trip in January 2025, successive governments have held a blissfully blind belief of optimism in CCP goodwill. When in reality, the sales to China of our vital infrastructure, businesses, and companies, which has taken place over these past decades, has left us dangerously exposed to foul play and disruption. The recent verbal wrist-tying of our government by refusing to recognise the CCP as a ‘threat’, out of fear of Chinese economic reprisal is a showcase of the sturdier backbone needed when dealing with China.
Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, the two men at the heart of the spy case which was dropped on September 15th, were alleged with passing sensitive insider information from the House of Commons to a Chinese intelligence agent. Yet despite there being sufficient evidence to prosecute them, the inability to obtain evidence from the government that referred to China as a national security threat caused the case to collapse. This lack of literary clarity is perfectly presented in the Strategic Defence Review, published in June 2025, which describes China as a ‘sophisticated and persistent challenge’, not a threat.
China, however, has not made any attempts to mask their grave intentions and deep antagonism of our democratic way of life. Over the past decade, with their astronomic economic rise and simultaneous military burgeoning, China has proven more than willing to flex their newfound stately muscle, sprinkled with their authoritarian inclination.
We watched on helplessly as Hong Kong’s liberty, supposedly guaranteed under the Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984), tumbled into Xi’s Jinping’s sphere under the National Security Law in 2020. Ukrainian troops are being killed and their weaponry destroyed from drones made from up to 80% of parts produced in China, not to mention the $62 billion dollars of Chinese oil imports propping up the Russian war economy. Whilst the democratic Republic of China based in Taiwan retains a boldened place on the future war agenda of the CCP.
But successive British officials pandering to the Chinese state, putting the Treasury ahead of national security, has wrapped us tight in the palm of the CCP’s power grip. Selling off of our critical infrastructure to Chinese companies, which have legal obligations to the co-operate with state intelligence authorities of the CCP, has left us ripe to exposure. China General Nuclear Power Group owns a 27.4% stake of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station and 66.5% of Bradwell B nuclear site. There is a rising proportion of the Chinese EV’s in the UK car market, evident with the 880% increase in BYD electric car UK sales in the past year. Possibly most concerning is the Chinese dominance of our battery supply, with the Minety battery site in Wiltshire, one of the largest energy storage projects in Europe, funded and constructed by a Chinese state-owned company, Huaneng, which still operates the facility today.
How, might you ask, does this leave us vulnerable? Take the recent discovery in Norway by Oslo’s public transport service: the Chinese bus manufacturer Yutong, of whose buses are currently in operation across the UK, has built-in kill switches whereby the manufacturer could wirelessly make their buses “inoperable”. Unfriendly states no longer need to step foot on British soil to cause significant delays, disruption and damage. The wide proliferation of Chinese tech, along with allowing Chinese companies to develop an intricate knowledge of our national infrastructure, leaves us unequivocally vulnerable to widescale disruption via cyberattacks and electronic interference – if the Chinese state decided to turn hostile. The results of such possible disruption were seen in September 2025, with huge delays caused by the cyberattacks on Heathrow. But that is only a mild comparison to the potential havoc that China could release, if so inclined.
This is without mentioning the intense pressures that the CCP is placing onto our academic institutions and their power to sway academic liberties. In a recent survey by the UK-China Transparency think tank, Chinese government officials have been found pressuring lecturers in UK universities to avoid topics unfavourable to the CCP, as well as coercing Chinese students coming to the UK to spy on their classmates. But the pressure is coming from within universities too, stipulated by fear of Chinese state reactions. Sheffield Hallam University has recently been embroiled in a scandal involving the internal prevention of the publication on forced labour in China by Professor Laura Murphy due to concerns that it would impact the university’s ability to recruit Chinese students. The blocking of access to the university’s websites within China having pressured this outcome. Although the ruling was ultimately overturned and the research published, it highlights the susceptibility of free speech in universities to Chinese blackmailing tactics.
The Government is aware and waking-up to these range of threats. In April, the Government stepped in to save Scunthorpe steelworks and thus Britain’s ability to be able to produce virgin steel from the attempted shutdown by its Chinese owned company. The Office for Students is ensuring freedom of speech persists in universities through the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023; Laura Murphy’s eventual publication is an example of this governmental success in protecting intellectual and academic integrity in our universities.
This success in hazard recognition must therefore be implemented into a consistent and linear approach, similar to governments’ handling of Russia. In the Strategic Defence Review, there was clarity in Russia being ‘an immediate and pressing threat’. A similar transparency must be taken with China, an authoritarian state that has an equal distaste of our democratic principles, and with far greater economic strength and means to indirectly damage us.
Until our government starts recognising and framing the Chinese state as what it clearly and evidently is to British national security – a threat – these legal trip hazards will continue to bind our courts hands to incriminate spies and protect our freedoms, knowledge, and institutions. A fully coordinated, unilateral and proactive approach from academia to defence, business to diplomacy, is needed. British industry and infrastructure must be prevented from coming into Chinese ownership and thus possible manipulation and disruption. Foreign ownership in general must be risk reviewed and assessed against national security to prevent the random and isolated loss of control of our industries, company-by-company. Universities, students, and researchers’ freedoms must continue to be protected through fierce academic commitment to the truth. The Chinese diplomatic machine speaks in terms of strength. Thus, we must reciprocate this language, and stand defiant against intimidation and bullying, if we want to attain Reeves’ current fantasy of a “level playing field”.
