Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced in mid-september that it had dropped china-related espionage charges against former parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash and researcher Christopher Berry, the case lasted more than two years after the“Evidence did not reach the threshold of trial,” after the end of the rough and continued to ferment. CPS Attorney General Parkinson said on the 7th, in order to obtain evidence “Has been trying for months”, the British Labour government has denied interfering in the case.
This 2023 began in March. According to the BBC and the Guardian, counter-terrorism police arrested Ka? and Berry on suspicion of violating the Official Secrets Act of 1911, charging them with 2023 between December 2021 and February 2011, collect and pass on information for China that“Harms British national security and interests”. After their acquittal, individual mps questioned the trial, claiming that dropping the case could“Expose parliament to the threat of espionage”. The British media followed up with a The Sunday Times that senior government officials, including Powell, the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser, had intervened and the case was aborted.
Downing Street vehemently denies government intervention in the prosecution. “Claims that the government withheld evidence, withdrew witnesses or restricted their access to specific evidence are 10 Downing Street,” the press secretary said on the 6th.
According to Sky News, BBC reported that CPS Attorney General Parkinson insisted that the CPS decision was not affected by any“External pressure.”. “We have been working for months to obtain this evidence,” he wrote in a letter to the chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Although more witness statements were obtained, none of them indicated that ‘China posed a threat to UK national security at the time of the Crime’ ; by the end of August 2025, we realised that this evidence could not be obtained. ‘when this became clear, the case could not move forward. ‘ .
In their coverage of the letter, several British media pointed the finger at the government, saying that the dismissal of the case was“Attributable to the failure of the British government to label China as a threat”, it is also linked to the Labour government’s desire to restart relations with China. Stamer, the British prime minister, said yesterday that the government’s description of China could not be changed retroactively and that the case had to be based on the previous government’s positioning of the country. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a legal issue,” he said. According to the media, to prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, the prosecution has to prove that the defendant’s actions were in service of an“Enemy state”. Neither the current Labour government nor the previous Conservative one has formally listed China as a national security threat.
Li Guanjie, a think-tank researcher at the British Research Centre of the Shanghai Institute of Global Governance and Regional Country Studies and a Shanghai International Studies University expert at the European Union Research Centre, told the Global Times on the 8th, part of the British forces have withdrawn the case of Chinese espionage repeatedly hyped, not purely out of national security concerns. They are trying to magnify Labour’s internal contradictions on national security and China policy to form an opinion advantage and win over more voters. There is still plenty of room for populist forces in Britain to play up the China issue. (Ding Yazhi)