The conviction today in the High Court at the Old Bailey in London of two men on a charge of assisting a foreign intelligence service between under the National Security Act has raised concerns regarding illegal security intelligence activities conducted by entities or individuals related to China. The Metropolitan Police stated that “The foreign intelligence service to which the above charges relate is that of Hong Kong.”
The author was an expert witness in the case to give evidence regarding the nature of intelligence operations conducted by Chinese government agencies.
The Metropolitan Police Case
The Metropolitan Police stated on 13 May that the operation has been led from London but involved officers of the network of counter terrorism command across the country. On 1 May, the police detained 11 people under the National Security Act 2023, ten of them in Yorkshire and one in London.
Three of those arrested were later charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service (convicted), contrary to section 3(1) and (9) of the National Security Act 2023, and also with foreign interference (acquitted), contrary to section 13(2) and (7) of the National Security Act 2023. The three men charged are 38 year old Peter Chi Leung Wai of Staines-upon-Thames, 37 year old Matthew Trickett of Maidenhead (who later committed suicide), and 63 year old Chung Biu Yuen of Hackney. The police stated that “The foreign intelligence service to which the above charges relate is that of Hong Kong”.
Chung Biu Yuen, or Bill Yuen, was an Office Manager at the London Economic and Trade Office of the Hong Kong Government. He is a retired Hong Kong Police officer, having reached the rank of Superintendent, promoted in 1998 and posted to the Service Quality Wing. Yuen reportedly served most of his police career in Marine and Traffic, and there is no indication that he has any intelligence or investigative experience. He migrated to the UK after retirement from the Hong Kong Police, and is a resident of Hackney in London.
Peter Chi Leung Wai is a serving officer with the UK Border Force and also the founding director of private security firm, D5 Security Consultancy Ltd. According to Companies House, D5 Security Consultancy was incorporated in January 2018 with Wai as the sole director but was dissolved via voluntary striking off in June 2022. The website of the company states that “Founder Peter Wai, having over 20 years’ experience in the British military, police and private security sector. His vast knowledge, experience and leadership within this sector allows D5 Security to resolve security concerns at all levels and over various roles, as well as using his vast network of professionals in providing exclusive and discreet services to his clients.”
The third man arrested, Matthew Tricket, a UK national, was found dead in a park in Maidenhead on 19th May. Trickett has been a Home Office immigration officer, a Border Force officer, also served as a Royal Marine for six years, and was the director of a security firm called MTR Consultancy (an unusual company name that is the same as the Hong Kong ‘Mass Transit Railway’ company name abbreviation, ‘MTR’). The police are not considering his death as suspicious, and obviously the criminal case against him is not proceeding.
The prosecution case is startling, and includes an allegation that “On 1 May 2024, Chung Biu YUEN, Chi Leung WAI and Matthew Peter Trickett engaged in prohibited conduct, namely, forcing entry into a UK residential address”. The brief facts of the prosecution case state:
“Between 20 December 2023 and 2 May 2024 Chung Biu YUEN, Chi Leung WAI and Matthew Peter Trickett engaged in conduct, namely agreeing to undertake information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception, that was likely to materially assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out UK-related activities…
The criminal activity includes conducting hostile activity within the UK to assist a foreign intelligence service. It is alleged that YUEN in his capacity as office manager for the HKETO, also appears to have a remit to gather intelligence on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. YUEN has tasked WAI and TRICKETT to conduct specific hostile activity which includes information gathering, hostile surveillance, acts of deception and forcing entry into a UK residential address. The primary targets of the hostile activity appear to be Hong Kong diaspora now based in the UK.”
The charges and the facts around them are very clear, alleging that the three men were engaged in intelligence activities. However, to understand the nature of potential Chinese intelligence gathering activities in the UK and elsewhere an assessment of the entities that could be involved is necessary. Intelligence capabilities in Hong Kong has been different before and after 1997, when the British returned sovereignty of the territory to the PRC.
Hong Kong Security Intelligence Pre-1997
During British administration of Hong Kong, the Royal Hong Kong Police maintained a Special Branch to conduct security related intelligence activities. Special Branch in Hong Kong was different from constabulary Special Branches in Britain as it was part of a colonial police force that operated with a high degree of independence from the UK authorities.
Special Branch did however work closely with other branches of the British colonial infrastructure, including the military, the Security Service, and the Secret Intelligence Service. What most distinguished the RHKP Special Branch from UK constabulary counterparts was that it managed a wide range of liaison relationships with friendly intelligence agencies, particularly from Australia, Canada, and the USA. These relationships defined Special Branch as an independent intelligence agency that was able to use intelligence product to build working relationships with those friendly agencies, which all had a need for good quality intelligence regarding China.
The origins of Special Branch were in the ‘Anti-Communist Squad’ in the Criminal Investigation Department of the RHKP, which was established in the 1920s to monitor left wing agitators and the growing Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By 1932, the Chinese name of the Anti-Communist Squad had become ‘cheng chih pu’ (政治部), which translated means ‘political department’. In 1933, the name was changed to Special Branch which was in line with other colonial police forces.
The main role of Special Branch from the 1930s was monitoring “Chinese affairs”, communist cells, and labour organisations, as well as immigration surveillance to detect any subversives entering the colony.
The expertise in Special Branch was built up by talented officers over the decades of British administration since the resumption of government following the defeat of the Japanese in World War Two. During the war, intelligence was led by Superintendent “Our Frankie” Shaftain, the head of CID and a Special Branch section dealing with subversion. Shaftain led the police intelligence efforts during the battle for Hong Kong in 1941, and was responsible for major decisions such as the summary execution (by machine gun) of collaborators in an alley next to the Lane Crawford department store as well as making an agreement with the leaders of major triad societies to not turn against the British in return for allowing them to continue their criminal activities after the end of the war (which Shaftain recorded in the Police Diary of the battle).
The importance of Special Branch increased substantially after the CCP defeat of the Kuomintang in 1949, and such was the secretive nature of monitoring the Chinese communists that the official annual police reports only stated that Special Branch was “responsible for the prevention and detection of activities subversive to the security of Hong Kong”.
Despite the strong focus on monitoring Chinese communist activities, a more crucial role of Special Branch after 1949 was monitoring and countering Kuomintang (KMT) intelligence operations directed against the Peoples’ Republic of China. The KMT used Hong Kong as a jumping off point to infiltrate the PRC and to build cover for agents. It was essential for British administration in Hong Kong that the CCP did not see the colony as a base for the KMT to subvert the PRC, and consequently Special Branch had an aggressive approach to countering KMT intelligence with regular round ups of agent networks and deportations of them to Taiwan. Surprisingly for many people, Special Branch did not take such an approach against the CCP as to do so would have been impossible as their agents were ubiquitous and established at all levels of society. Consequently, the Special Branch approach, guided by the Governor (who was an appointee from the Foreign Office of the British government) was to monitor Chinese communist activities and prevent them from undermining the colonial government, but to proactively counter KMT activities and expel them from Hong Kong.
Special Branch was a large but tightly managed intelligence organisation. The contact Special Branch telephone number was well known in the Royal Hong Kong Police – 28603217. Calls to this number would be answered by the Duty Controller in the Special Branch Information Centre (SBIC), an Inspector, with “3217” and no other words. The caller would be expected to know who he wanted to be directed to, and the Duty Controller would never identify the number as Special Branch.
There was a large cadre of British officers in Special Branch, driven by the need to maintain security and ensure an effective working relationship with UK intelligence and military agencies. A list of registered translators of a long list of Chinese dialects kept in the SBIC included around half who were British officers fluent in various Chinese dialects, illustrating the nature of many of the officers who joined Special Branch.
In the decade leading up to the handover of sovereignty in 1997, Special Branch was kept busy by the CCP crackdown on dissent from the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and preparations for the departure of the British administration. This involved screening applications for political asylum to identify those with a genuine need to be relocated overseas and escape arrest by the Chinese communist authorities, a necessary step as in the late 1980s and early 1990s there continued to be high numbers of economic illegal immigrants being smuggled into Hong Kong.
However, Special Branch began to wind down its China facing establishment and no new officers were recruited to those sections from 1988. Special Branch was split into two wings, ‘Intelligence Wing’ (IW) and ‘Security Wing’ (SW). IW was comprised of the historical Special Branch sections that included the China facing activities. SW was comprised of all other intelligence activities, including monitoring immigration, organised labour groups, protest groups, political parties, KMT (Taiwanese intelligence), counter terrorism, and VIP protection. SW had a full range of intelligence functions, and only lacked the China facing sections which were withdrawn for obvious reasons.
As well as Special Branch, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) also had a strong intelligence led capability and was briefly considered as a partial replacement for the loss of Special Branch. A key part of government security intelligence was vetting, which was ably managed by Special Branch as well as the Criminal Intelligence Bureau (CIB). Government vetting is a process involving multiple departments and databases, and can rarely be conducted by a single entity. Special Branch provided database checks of any political issues, the CIB of any criminal issues (in particular Triad society membership or associations), and the ICAC of any integrity and corruption issues. Vetting involves checking intelligence records, not only conviction records, and the intelligence databases of Special Branch, CIB, as well as the ICAC each contained tens of thousands of records.
In 1993, Jim Buckle, then Acting Commissioner of the ICAC, proposed to the Legislative Council Establishment Sub-Committee that the ICAC take up the vetting responsibilities of Special Branch after it was disbanded. In 1994, Richard Hoare, the Director of Administration, stated that the ICAC would be given responsibility for political vetting. Hong Kong legislators were concerned that the proposed new vetting role of the ICAC would be a politicisation of the Commission, which had a reputation for integrity and was a cornerstone of anti-corruption. This suspicion was understandable given the reputation of Special Branch as a secret organisation about which almost nothing was known. However, in reality the ICAC already had a role in the government vetting processes in collaboration with CIB as well as the new Security Wing, which also inherited a vetting role but without the historical Special Branch records.
The ICAC did not eventually develop any political intelligence role or expand its government vetting role. After 1997, the ICAC was even more independent in its investigation of government corruption, illustrated by the arrest in 2012 of former Chief Secretary Raphael Hui and in 2015 the arrest of former Chief Executive of the Hong Kong government, Donald Tsang. Both cases were purely criminal matters, although they probably marked the end for the genuine independence of the ICAC as it had aimed so high in the establishment and no further arrests of senior government officials have followed.
Security Wing and also the ICAC have been historically supported by the Technical Services Division (TSD), a specialist technical group jointly managed by the police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) to provide technical intercept services to both organisations. These included the full range of common technical intercepts, including of telephone landlines, mobile phones, facsimiles, and emails. The importance of the TSD was illustrated by the fact that senior police officers were posted to the division, including John Li, the current Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Government, as a Chief Superintendent in 2020 when he received the Hong Kong Police Medal for Meritorious Service.
The TSD existed prior to and after 1997 and has been a crucial part of the intelligence gathering infrastructure for the Hong Kong authorities that enables the police and ICAC to intercept communications. The ICAC and specialist police units such as the Criminal Intelligence Bureau and the Narcotics Bureau used TSD intercept services to target organised crime groups, but SW had access to the intercepts to target political groups and individuals.
Hong Kong Security Intelligence Post-1997
Despite having such a strong political policing organisation, the post-1997 Hong Kong Police clearly failed to maintain effective intelligence gathering. Police sources have commented that a large number of resources were devoted after 1997 to monitoring the Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa), a religious quasi-cult founded by Li Hongzhi in the 1990s. In April 1999, around 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners surrounded the Zhongnanhai government compound in Beijing, which the CCP leadership saw as a direct threat to their rule. The Falun Gong was banned in the PRC from 1999, but was not outlawed in Hong Kong which became a haven for Falun Gong protests for the next two decades. This permissiveness of Falun Gong activities in Hong Kong in the first two decades of the century led to substantial monitoring by the new SW to ensure that the PRC authorities could be assured that there was no direct subversion of the CCP from Hong Kong.
The outcome of this somewhat single minded focus by SW on Falun Gong seems to have been a decline of insight into what was happening in Hong Kong society. SW and the Hong Kong Police leadership had no insight into the nature and extent of new protest movements that developed in the first two decades of the 21st century.
In 2014, the “Occupy Protests” were a result of growing public discontent but triggered by the August white paper from the PRC State Council titled “The Practice of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Policy in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region”. The lengthy white paper explained the “one country two systems” concept and reiterated that Hong Kong is an inseparable part of China, the central government has comprehensive jurisdiction, and that “the high degree of autonomy” of Hong Kong is not an inherent power but only authorisation from the central leadership. The large scale peaceful protests were inflamed by a clumsy police dispersal operation on 28 September that involved large amounts of tear gas being fired at the crowd, which initially dispersed them but led to a return to the streets of even larger numbers.
The use of force by the Police was a brief tactical success but a strategic failure and only served to further inflame tensions as well as influence more people to return to protest, which they did on the night of 28 September. Tens of thousands of protesters returned to the streets of the Admiralty, Central, Causeway Bay, and Mong Kok areas and occupied major road junctions. The occupation continued for 77 days and involved Triads (Chinese criminals) attacking protesters, counter-protests from government supporters, an assault by six Police officers of a social worker that was recorded by a television news camera, and clashes between protesters and police. The entire protest period of 2014 was a clear failure of SW to have insight into the political situation and to appropriately brief police leadership as well as government to enable them to respond with appropriate political counter measures.
In 2019, the police and SW again failed to understand the complexity of the social situation. In February the Government announced that it would amend the existing extradition law which would enable the return of fugitives to Taiwan as well as Mainland China, which was not then legally possible. The misguided legislation led to prolonged protests, ostensibly regarding the of amendments to the extradition law but reflecting the deeper discontent in society. Peaceful protests, on several occasions (according to the organisers) numbering at least a million people, frequently deteriorated into violent clashes between protesters and the police creating a cycle of violence that the government showed no ability to stop by political means. A minority of protesters grew more radical and more willing to engage in violence to confront the police and as a nihilistic expression of discontent. The police used escalating levels of force with riot-control tactics involving the use of tear gas, pepper spray, projectile rounds, and firearms.
The violent protests that started in 2019 ended in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic caused fear amongst the Hong Kong population of a new deadly virus similar to SARS that occurred in 2003. The police were unable to stop the protests, and it was apparent through 2019 how little the police, and by implication SW, understood about the new wave of youth led protest movements. Clearly SW and political intelligence policing in Hong Kong had failed from 1997 to 2020.
The National Security Department
In 2020, the new National Security Law promulgated by the National Peoples’ Congress of the PRC led to the creation of a new National Security Department (NSD) in the Hong Kong Police. The debate before the creation of the NSD was disingenuous as many political figures in the city called for the creation of an organisation similar to the pre-1997 Special Branch, but this already existed with Security Wing which had all of the intelligence functions and resources except monitoring the CCP. The debate in Hong Kong in 2020 failed to recognise that SW and the Hong Kong Police had been a failure in political policing after 1997.
However, the NSD was an upgraded version of SW and was led by a Deputy Commissioner (SW was led by an Assistant Commissioner). The Hong Kong Police states that the NSD is responsible for the following:
1. Collecting and analysing intelligence and information concerning national security;
2. Planning, coordinating and enforcing measures and operations for safeguarding national security;
3. Investigating offences endangering national security;
4. Conducting counter-interference investigation and national security review;
5. Carrying out tasks of safeguarding national security assigned by the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; and
6. Performing other duties and functions necessary for the enforcement of the “National Security Law” and the “Safeguarding National Security Ordinance”.
In November 2020, the NSD launched the ‘National Security Department Reporting Hotline’, which aims to facilitate members of the public to provide or report national security related information. In July 2023, the NSD announced that they would pay rewards of up to HK$1 million (£101,000) for information leading to the arrest of persons wanted for political related offences.
The Hong Kong Police publishes a list of those wanted by the police and the rewards available for information leading to their arrest. The offences that the wanted persons are sought in connection with include ‘Collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security’, ‘Subversion’, ‘Incitement to Subversion’, and ‘Incitement to Secession’. Those wanted by the police include former Hong Kong legislators, lawyers, as well as trade union leaders. The Hong Kong Police stated in December 2023 that they had received over 500 reports from the public regarding the wanted persons, illustrating the impact of creating a reporting hotline and also offering large financial rewards for information.
In May 2024, it was reported in news media in Canada that a former Hong Kong resident, now living in Vancouver, has been contacted by officers of the Hong Kong Police NSD and threatened if he does not cooperate with them to monitor and report on Hong Kong dissidents. The information has been reported by Edmund Wan, a former Hong Kong radio commentator and supporter of the pro-democracy movement who was imprisoned for almost two years in Hong Kong after being convicted of charges sedition and raising funds to provide legal assistance for youth facing pro-democracy charges. Wan has stated that a friend had an agreement with Hong Kong police NSD that he would be able to leave the city if he provided information on Hong Kong dissidents in Canada. If this account is accurate, then it is similar to methods used by Mainland Chinese security agencies (both the MSS and the PSB) in harassing Chinese dissidents and fugitives living outside China and marks a new international approach to intelligence operations from the Hong Kong Police.
Clearly the approach taken by the NSD has been far more proactive than both Security Wing as well as the pre-1997 Special Branch. This more active approach is likely to be influenced by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the national security intelligence agency of the PRC. In July 2020, the PRC authorities established the ‘Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’. The new agency immediately occupied the entire Metropark Hotel on Hong Kong Island as its temporary headquarters, which was owned by China Travel Services (a PRC state owned company).
The Office for Safeguarding National Security is effectively an outpost of the Ministries of State Security and Public Security. In January 2020, the PRC authorities appointed Zheng Yanxiong as the first director of the central government's office for safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Zheng came from the role of Secretary General of the CCP in Guangdong Province and a career in the province mostly in propaganda roles. Whilst Zheng has no apparent background in security intelligence, his deputies in the new office did. Li Jiangzhou was formerly director of the police liaison department of the liaison office of the central government in Hong Kong, and according to security intelligence analyst Matt Brazil is a previous head of the Ministry of Public Security 1st Bureau which is responsible for domestic security (i.e. the pursuit of dissidents, subversives, and terrorists). The other deputy was Sun Qingye, who was openly reported by Chinese state media as a career MSS official.
In July 2023, the PRC authorities announced that Dong Jingwei, formerly a vice minister of state security, was appointed as the new head of the office. Dong reportedly has a professional background in national security and experience in leading counter-espionage, having served as deputy minister of the Ministry of State Security, director of the Hebei Provincial Department of State Security, and director of the Political Department of the Ministry of State Security.
In September 2023, by then head of the PRC Liaison Office in Hong Kong, Zheng was reported to have stated that the authorities should be vigilant against anti-Chinese forces, continue to “rigorously enforce” the national security law, that there are still “hostile foreign forces” trying to disrupt Hong Kong’s development and stability, “anti-China elements” are attempting a comeback, and the Hong Kong Police should “build a solid defense line” for national security. The statement seems to be a continuation of the provision of backbone to the Hong Kong Police to take the lead in suppressing political dissent and criticism of the CCP.
The influence of the central government in national security policy and strategy in Hong Kong is apparent from the local ‘Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’. The Hong Kong Chief Executive and senior members of the government are the members of the committee, along with the Commissioner of Police and the Deputy Commissioner responsible for the NSD. However, the PRC State Council appointed the director of the Liaison Office as the ‘National Security Advisor’ on the committee, illustrating the guiding hand of central government in local national security matters.
It is clear from the PRC government appointments that the MSS has a strong role in guiding security policy in Hong Kong and because of their major operational presence in the Office for Safeguarding National Security can exercise strong guidance on the leadership of the Hong Kong Police. Because of the large overt deployment of senior MSS and PSB staff to the city and their expanded role in local government committees, it is unlikely that the Hong Kong Police has operational independence in national security matters after the establishment of the MSS led Office for Safeguarding National Security in 2020.
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Various Chinese government agencies are clearly taking a more proactive and aggressive approach to the pursuit of political fugitives. It seems likely that the more proactive approach of the NSD has been pushed by the opening of the PRC Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong. The Office is an outpost of the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Public Security, which have both shown extensive international capabilities in recent years. The MSS is highly likely to be the senior liaison partner and policy driver for the Hong Kong Police NSD, which is a clear change from previous years when the police have been largely autonomous.
Notwithstanding the likely MSS influence on the Hong Kong Police, the illegal activities by the three men charged in the UK do not seem likely to be directly managed by the MSS. The activities have an amateurish nature, but the MSS has the capability and extensive resources to conduct complex international operations on a far more professional basis.
The other worrying possibility is that the continued aggressive comments by the Chinese authorities regarding the perpetual pursuit of dissidents and the substantial financial rewards for information leading to their arrest is inspiring amateur ‘volunteers’ to pursue them in the UK and elsewhere. The national security laws promulgated in the PRC may be an impetus for amateur actions and ‘crowdsourcing’ international intelligence gathering in support of Chinese communist united front activities. In this situation everyone anywhere in the world is a potential spy for the PRC, which is a clear national security risk for the UK and its allies.
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