02-07-2025
MI5's ‘epic' China warning is being ignored
T he oohs and aahs came in a steady stream. The lion, made up of two lads inside a costume of elaborate, fluorescent riffles and painted swirls, was going shop to shop performing dramatic gyrations to a flurry of drumbeats, before rearing up to chomp lettuces hung from windows, and then spraying out the bits to onlookers. This was London's Chinese New Year parade and it was, in short, a better day out than Glastonbury.
But though I did not realise it at the time, there was a similarly troubling political backdrop. That very day, a few streets away, Sadiq Khan was posing for photos with a man called Chu Ting Tang who, to all appearances, was just a regular diaspora bigwig who leads the London Chinatown Chinese Association. This, it turns out, is a bit like calling Captain Hook a cultural ambassador for amputees. What Tang actually is, according to a new report by the investigative charity UK China Transparency (UKCT), is an exceptionally senior official linked to the notorious Chinese propaganda and espionage department known as the United Front. (Neither he, nor the LCCA, responded to my queries.)
