You may have seen in the news the extraordinary footage of part of a break-in to the flat of an ex-pat Hong Kong woman, Ms Monica Kwong, in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. A Border Force official had been passing sensitive contact information to his handler who worked at the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office (HKETO) in London and then recruited others to pose as workmen in order to get access to the flat - including pouring water on the floor to simulate a leak. When they finally forced their way in they were apprehended by MI5 officers who had presumably been notified by Ms Kwong and were watching. HKETO is reported as being responsible for forcible repatriation. Bounties up to £100,000, were 'publicised' by the office.
The Border Force official, Peter Wai, accessed the Home Office Atlas database on his days off, taking advantage of work-from-home access. He was also a Special Constable, but had a forged warrant card showing the rank of Superintendent. Remote access has apparently now been made more secure. Several others were also arrested including 2 ex-Royal Marines.
HKETO have been 'taking "the law into their own hands", and acting "as if Pontefract were a district of Hong Kong"' said the prosecution. This kind of action seems to have become commonplace in Britain and we have been woefully negligent in not stopping it.
Wai and Yuen, his handler at HKETO, were found guilty of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
A symptom of something deeper?
This is a case study of only one element of the CCP's efforts to bring the world under its control - there is a pseudo charm offensive (see United Front below) and then there is this. The CCP has always had the ambition to control beyond its borders. From the days of Mao Tse Tung (Mao Zedong), the concept of 'world communism' was always paramount. They competed with Stalin for that role - even though the USSR had helped them in the civil war against the Nationalists. While the USSR remained dominant during Stalin's lifetime, the PRC has now grown to be the pre-eminent power.
Its world-wide vision is driven by a sense that it has been oppressed in the past (the 'century of humiliation' by the West) and so now has the right to dominate the world. It's methods and intentions are much more thorough and sophisticated than were the West's in the 18-1900s which focussed on trade and the defence of trade routes.
The CCP sees its efforts as "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" - which sounds laudable until you see that 'rejuvenation' actually means domination of others - including the subjugation of Taiwan. So the motivation maps onto the 'cry-bully' impulse of socialist ideologies.
United Front
The United Front (UF) is the huge and sprawling organisation primarily designed to fulfil this national goal of supremacy. The CCP realised early on that it had to infiltrate the West to acquire its knowledge, technology, wealth and respect.
A Jamestown think-tank report says that there are over 2000 UF groups across the US, Canada, UK and Germany operating openly in different spheres. The following summary is based on this report which has been assembled from public sources.
- Identity-Based Organisations - these emphasise Chinese identity for overseas ethnic Chinese groups and "provide services to enrich and invigorate the life of the Chinese community, enhance the status and image of the Chinese people, and provide services to promote U.S.-China friendship" So traditional celebrations are staged as if invented by the CCP, not traditional Chinese, Taiwanese, Confucius, Tibetan or Uyghur culture.
- Cultural Promotion Centres and Friendship Organisations - these are aimed at the people of the host country to promote the image of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). They are also aimed initially to the second or third generation of migrant families, but it's to "let more international friends know the real China".
- Business Associations and Trade Promotion Organisations - technology and financial investment have always been a key motivator - but with the touching idea that its motivated to "care for and develop our socialist homeland" (Deng Xiaoping 1979). In practice there are no limits for acquiring business advantage.
- Educational Organisations - these promote Mandarin - again primarily to ethnic Chinese abroad. Mandarin is the official PRC language although Cantonese and many local languages/dialects exist in China, but are discouraged. Training activity is extensive with over 1200 UK teachers attending sessions by the Association for the Promotion of Chinese Education in 2022.
- Student Organisations - in the UK the Chinese Student and Scholars Association (CSSAUK) hosts Chinese New Year galas as well as supporting the cultural life of Chinese students to "make unremitting efforts to strengthen their patriotic enthusiasm and cohesion"
- Professional Organizations - these are cultivated to bring talent and knowledge back to the "motherland" eg The Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association USA there are at least 71 such organisations in the US. They can arrange trips to PRC. Business, and academic figures are in danger of being drawn in too closely.
- Political Party-Focused and Policy-Focused Groups - promoting CCP policy and interests nationally and locally.
- Media Organizations - aimed at presenting a favourable view of how the CCP sees world events and encouraging local media to see it the same way.
These all seem relatively innocuous and most nations would have similar aims for their diplomatic and trade missions. The sheer numbers, scope, depth and cost of this operation is what marks it out. What are the real motivations?
The dark side
We also know that there is a parallel extra-judicial side to all this as discussed by Jamestown president Peter Mattis:
'Mao Tsi Tung described United Front Work as a tool to storm and shatter the enemy's position. That means that that organization's about political struggle. It's not about exchange.'
All the United Front's activities are about advancing PRC interests and while we can all accept 'talking up' your own government, we don't expect those who oppose it to be sanctioned either in their country or in yours. This may have been the motivation for the repatriation of Ms Kwong. She had a corruption charge against her in Hong Kong but claimed that was a set-up. I'm not sure which official branch of United Front HKETO belong to, if they do. In reality it sounds like one of the 'Police Stations' setup around the world for this and other purposes.
Did United Front contacts in media, Big Pharma, the WHO or UN cause the Covid warnings and causes to be so famously delayed and deflected away from the PRC?
There are fears that the proposed PRC embassy on the old Royal Mint site, near London Bridge will have holding cells in the basement - as a mega 'Police Station'. The local people are opposing the embassy and a friend did a prayer walk around the site - it's a spiritual battle.
In the UK two men were accused of selling secrets to the PRC. The case fell apart due to a Whitehall 'shambles' - not knowing if a foreign power buying secrets was an enemy!
British MPs like Sir Iain Duncan Smith who has spoken out against the CCP are proscribed.
Any Chinese heritage student, businessman or journalist who does not live up to CCP expectations is no doubt made aware of the effect on their family at home. The CCP seem to regard all ethic Chinese, even if second or third generation citizens of other countries, as PRC citizens with the associated obligations - hence the United Front commitment to educate them. The West is slowly waking up to all this. Cases of intellectual and industrial theft in the US are now being prosecuted more thoroughly and student visas tightened.
Interviewer Jan Jekielek says 'I mean, this is where we really have to come to grips with the fact that the CCP does not really have a moral bottom line'. He was speaking in the context of fentanyl imports to the US - a sort of reverse 'Opium War', even though Mao had apparently grown Opium to sell to Chinese people to fund the CCP.
Christian threat
This is all really just to explore the situation for Christians in China and in the West, what we all should be aware of.
Donald Trump is visiting China this week and has said he'll raise the cases of those imprisoned against Human Rights law. This includes pastors from the Light of Zion Church in central China. They wished to worship outside the CCP controls on churches, so have been arrested. Millions of other native Chinese face this every week - Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, or Falun Gong practitioners.
In this context, Congressman John Moolenaar said of the CCP: "It doesn't have confidence in its ideas. It fears people of faith, and it censors the truth."
The UK government seems too keen to appease the CCP and are so unjustly ashamed of its own history and Christian heritage to say anything.
We also need to consider where the wealth comes from to run all the United Front and other agencies - it's from the West paying for PRC manufactured goods. Human Rights sanctions should be imposed on them - if we hadn't allowed ourselves to be so dependent. In the US, at least, they are trying to reverse the situation. We too can check for country of origin, especially when buying online.
Careful fellowship
Chinese congregations and fellowships in the UK and US also have to think - is this visitor a United Front operative or a genuine seeker. They know their vigilance will have to be long-term as any infiltration may be patient and persistent. They may volunteer for coffee, then offer to be the group secretary handling the mailing list...
Western Christians already have a taste of repression - if they stick their necks out (which is why God gave us necks!) on any key issue like abortion, identity, sexuality, end-of-life, immigration, but nothing like so intensely as our bothers and sisters in China or maybe in our neighbourhood. Let's support them and help where we can. Open Doors has good information on this.
