Judging only by the length of queues outside cinemas when a new James Bond film comes out (and there have been 27, to date), it is fair to say that the Maltese enjoy a good spy story.
So they might have a reasonable expectation about what would happen in real life when MI6 discovers a foreign agent – working for the Chinese government – operating right inside Westminster.
Of course, M would summon 007 and tell him to deal with it.
Q issues him with an International Warfare Magnum rifle (the UK-made folding version that can fit easily into a backpack) and a box of .338 Lapua Magnum bullets that can penetrate armoured glass. Testing the rifle in the London suburbs, Bond establishes that the gun – the best sniper rifle in the world – is accurate at 2,500 metres. Bond doesn’t work in metres, so he can be a mile and a half away when he is parachuted into central London to take the shot.
The shock, however, is that truth is stranger than fiction. In real life, MI6 doesn’t operate on home ground so it hands the matter over to MI5, the UK’s internal security people. These are highly trained, Oxford-educated types who are licensed to, er, type. Their top man, Basildon Bond, is called in.
He’s told: “This is the big one, Bazza. We’ll need a headshot. I need someone who can write a killer memo with deadly accuracy.”
This is what happened last week. As English newspaper stories go, this has more readers reeling than the report that Downing Street held a leaving party for one of its staff during lockdown.
MI5 issued a note to MPs, headed ‘Security Service MI5’. A “state threat actor”, it said, calling herself Christine Ching Kui Lee, aged 58, a Chinese lawyer, was “engaged in political interference activities” for her country’s ruling Communist Party. It included a photograph, a headshot, of the woman.
Newspaper investigations quickly revealed that one MP had received more than £600,000 from her and that she organised donations from the ‘United Front Work Department’ of the Chinese Communist Party for a number of serving and aspiring politicians in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties.
Her son, who had an office in the House of Commons (but was not accused of any wrongdoing), has suddenly quit and vanished. MI5 is not believed to be involved in the disappearance.
How many Chinese are there in Malta?- Revel Barker
Priti Patel, the UK Home Secretary, says the situation is “deeply concerning”.
MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of both the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and of the China Research Group, said: “Our security services are rightly focused on state threats in the UK. It is clear that the challenge from Beijing is increasing and we need to defend our democracy against hostile activity.”
Yes… defend it. But how? If 007 can’t shoot a Chinese agent, identified as a ‘state threat’ by both MI6 and MI5, because she’s on home soil, what happens to her? Will she be kidnapped and thrown into jail? Charged under the Official Secrets Act? At least, deported?
MI5 hands the matter on, in a memo, neatly typed, to the Department of Public Prosecutions. For their eyes only.
But the DPP can’t find that she has broken any law, so nothing can be done.
The situation either exposes the fact or reminds us that we have no idea how many foreign agents are operating in the UK. Which causes me to wonder how many might be operating in Malta, which has more friendly links with China than Britain has.
And it reminds me of taking tea some years ago with the foreign policy director of the CIA in Washington. Like MI6, the CIA has only ‘foreign’ policies: it doesn’t operate on home turf. When I mentioned that the CIA’s supposed policy was not to interfere with the politics of a foreign nation, he told me:
“Get real. There are politicians all over the world who you wouldn’t have heard of if it wasn’t for us.”
I suppose the thing about Malta being proudly neutral in world affairs means it doesn’t need finance from either China or America because it already has locals who will happily fund both main parties and politicians from all sides.
That’s okay (apparently) but, when apartments are being built continuously but not being sold, who funds the developers? Do we know? Do we care? Do we even ask?
The idea of getting China to fund a channel tunnel has already been mooted. Who brought up that idea?
I asked the Chinese Embassy how many Chinese were currently in Malta. Their spokesman told me: “We don’t know. Nobody knows.”
Well, if I were in Malta’s Foreign Ministry, I’d want to know.
Before I called in Ġakbu Bondi… Or a guy with a laptop.