Muddle over semantics or pressure from China? Collapsed spying case remains baffling | Foreign policy

A surprising contradiction is at the heart of security minister Dan Jarvis’ efforts to explain why the investigation into two Britons accused of spying for China collapsed last month. The problem, he insisted before MPs on Monday, was that “it is not the policy of a Conservative government to classify China as a threat to national security”.

But there is ample evidence in documents and public statements by ministers and officials that China was considered a threat by previous governments. All of which makes the failure of the government witness (deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins) to establish this in three separate witness statements to the prosecution all the more surprising.

The context here is the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the investigation into Christopher Cash, the parliamentary investigator who was working for Conservative MP Alicia Kearns at the time of his arrest, and his friend Christopher Berry, a researcher in China. Both were charged with spying for China under the Official Secrets Act 1911 because the alleged crimes took place between late 2021 and early 2023, when the law was still in force.

The old legislation, now replaced by the National Security Act, required Collins—as a government witness—to label China an enemy, which was redefined as a “current threat to national security” after a July 2024 trial. But it appears that he did not do so to the satisfaction of the Crown Prosecution Service, not only in his original witness statement in December 2023, but also in February and July 2025.

The official explanation continues to be that it was this failure that led the CPS to abandon the case a month before it was due to begin. Jarvis, who was keen to distract ministers and the prime minister’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell from the embarrassing episode, insisted that the content of all key evidence was “a matter for the deputy national security adviser”.

While the UK’s relationship with China will always be complex and cannot be reduced to a single word as Jarvis tries to claim, the idea that Chinese actors do not threaten the UK between 2021 and 2023 is absurd. Kemi Badenoch, responding on behalf of the Conservatives, had a lot to aim for, starting with the policy documents the Labor Secretary sought to present in his defence.

Jarvis referred to Boris Johnson’s integrated defense and foreign policy review published in March 2021; This is perhaps the best guide to the policy that prevailed at the time the alleged espionage occurred. The policy review described China as a “systemic threat” but, as the Conservative Party leader was able to point out, it was also the “biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security”.

During this period between August 2021 and October 2022, the Electoral Commission was attacked by Chinese actors, allowing cyber attackers to access voter records of 40 million people. When the Conservatives officially attributed the hack to Chinese players, then chancellor Rishi Sunak said China was the “best country”. biggest state-based challenge “For our national security.”

Against this background, it is not clear why Downing Street and Jarvis continued to focus on Conservative policy at the time of the alleged offences; whereas doing so continues to invite suspicions and further questions as to whether the civil servant was secretly pressured to restrict witness statements. There is no evidence that Labor, influenced by Powell, wants a closer relationship with China.

An obvious solution would be for Collins to provide more information by releasing the testimony of three witnesses, correcting the unproven allegations against Cash and Berry if necessary. Jarvis did not rule it out on Monday but said he could not disclose anything that “might be used in any ongoing legal process”; speaker Lindsay Hoyle was still pressing for a special investigation.

This will need to be resolved. For now, Labor is struggling to come up with a statement that would dispel suspicions that the government has failed to provide prosecutors with the information they need to improve the environment in Beijing. If the collapse of the case really means a mess of semantics, it must help to see Collins’ evidence.