The collapsed prosecution of Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry-two Britons accused of spying for China between late 2021 and early 2023-has triggered a high-stakes fight over law, national security, and politics in Britain.
According to the Wall Street Journal, officials had expected a “slam-dunk case,” citing extensive communications, alleged tasking, and sensitive parliamentary insights-only for the trial to fall apart on a legal technicality tied to how the UK defines an “enemy” under the Official Secrets Act.
The fallout has been sharp. MI5’s director-general publicly voiced frustration and described Chinese state activity as a daily threat even as the government published witness statements calling China “the biggest state-based threat to the country’s economic security,” according to the WSJ and the BBC .
Below is the case-what’s alleged, why it fell apart, and what it means next.
What kicked this off?According to the WSJ, in July 2022 Christopher Berry , a 30-year-old British economics teacher who had moved to China, allegedly traveled to Hangzhou to meet Cai Qi, “one of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s most trusted confidants and his current chief of staff.”
Shortly after, Christopher Cash, a British parliamentary researcher in London, sent Berry a voice note: “You are in spy territory now,” he allegedly said, the WSJ reported.
A year later, both were arrested on suspicion of spying for China, according to the WSJ.
Who are the two men and what were they accused of?
Cash worked with China-hawk MPs in the House of Commons; Berry was alleged to have a handler code-named “Alex” who tasked him with getting Cash to provide details about Parliament’s inner workings, with information then passed to the Chinese state, according to a UK government witness statement cited by the WSJ.
Among the material Cash allegedly provided: “The names and photos of a visiting delegation of Taiwanese defense-ministry officials who visited the UK in 2022,” the WSJ reported.
Reuters also reported that evidence described Cash allegedly sharing “nonpublic details about a security review” into a Chinese-linked attempt to buy the Newport Wafer Fab chip plant and passing political intelligence that gave “real time insights into Parliament’s views.”
Why did the prosecution collapse?
The case collapsed because the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it could not obtain government evidence stating China was a national-security threat at the time of the alleged offenses, the BBC reported.
Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson said a precedent in another spying case meant China needed to have been labeled a “threat to national security”; without that, an Official Secrets Act charge-defined as passing information useful to an “enemy”-couldn’t be proved, according to the BBC and AP.
The BBC also reported he told senior MPs the evidence was “5%” short of what was needed to try for a conviction. Some legal figures disagreed; former DPP Ken Macdonald said, “These statements were more than adequate to proceed with a prosecution in my view,” Reuters reported.
What did the government’s witness statements say?
The government released multiple statements from Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Collins . In them, China is described as conducting “large scale espionage” against the UK and as “the biggest state-based threat to the country’s economic security,” according to the BBC and the WSJ.
The August statement added: “The government’s position is that we will co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must,” the BBC reported.
Collins also wrote of the alleged meeting between Berry and Cai Qi: “It is highly unlikely that one of the most senior officials in China would meet with Mr Berry unless the Chinese state considered him to be someone who could obtain valuable information,” according to Reuters.
How did MI5 characterize the threat and the collapsed case?
AP reported that MI5 Director-General Ken McCallum said: “Do Chinese state actors present a UK national security threat? The answer is of course yes they do, every day,” and said MI5 had intervened to disrupt Chinese activity in the past week.
Reuters reported McCallum added, “Of course, I am frustrated when opportunities to prosecute national security threatening activity are not followed through for whatever reason,” while also noting the broader UK-China relationship is “a matter for the government.”
He also said, “When it comes to China, the UK needs to defend resolutely against threats and seize the opportunities that demonstrably serve our nation,” according to the WSJ.
What do Cash and Berry say?
Cash said he thought Berry worked for a strategic-advisory company in China and that he routinely spoke to him in good faith: “He was my friend and these were matters we were both passionately interested in,” and “I believed him to be as critical of and concerned about the Chinese Communist Party as I was,” according to the WSJ.
After the case collapsed, Cash added he had been placed in an “impossible situation” without “the daylight of a public trial to show my innocence,” and said the published statements were “completely devoid of the context that would have been given at trial,” the BBC reported.
Berry said: “I pleaded not guilty to the charge, and I have been acquitted. … Those reports contained no classified information… and drew on information freely in the public domain, together with political conjecture, much of which proved to be inaccurate. I do not accept that, in so doing, I was providing information to the Chinese Intelligence services,” according to the BBC.
How did China respond?
China’s embassy dismissed the case as “pure fabrication and malicious slander,” and said, “China never interferes in other countries’ internal affairs,” AP reported.
The embassy also called UK statements “rife with unfounded accusations,” Reuters reported.
What’s the political fallout?
The Conservatives accused the Labour government of letting the case die to protect economic ties with Beijing; Kemi Badenoch wrote that events leave “a strong impression that your government undermined Britain's national security because you are too weak to do anything other appease China,” according to the BBC.
Ministers denied interference and said the CPS acted independently; Prime Minister Keir Starmer argued the prosecution depended on how the previous Conservative government characterized China during 2021–23, the BBC reported.
Parliamentary committees have demanded “a fuller explanation for the dropping of charges,” and a formal inquiry has been launched, according to the BBC.
How does this fit into UK law and policy?
AP noted that the century-old Official Secrets Act used in the charges “has since been replaced by new national security legislation.” The broader China policy line-“co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must”-was reiterated in the August witness statement, the BBC reported, while the WSJ emphasized officials’ view of China as “the biggest state-based threat to the country’s economic security.”
(With inputs from agencies)
According to the Wall Street Journal, officials had expected a “slam-dunk case,” citing extensive communications, alleged tasking, and sensitive parliamentary insights-only for the trial to fall apart on a legal technicality tied to how the UK defines an “enemy” under the Official Secrets Act.
The fallout has been sharp. MI5’s director-general publicly voiced frustration and described Chinese state activity as a daily threat even as the government published witness statements calling China “the biggest state-based threat to the country’s economic security,” according to the WSJ and the BBC .
Below is the case-what’s alleged, why it fell apart, and what it means next.
What kicked this off?According to the WSJ, in July 2022 Christopher Berry , a 30-year-old British economics teacher who had moved to China, allegedly traveled to Hangzhou to meet Cai Qi, “one of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s most trusted confidants and his current chief of staff.”
Shortly after, Christopher Cash, a British parliamentary researcher in London, sent Berry a voice note: “You are in spy territory now,” he allegedly said, the WSJ reported.
A year later, both were arrested on suspicion of spying for China, according to the WSJ.
Who are the two men and what were they accused of?
Cash worked with China-hawk MPs in the House of Commons; Berry was alleged to have a handler code-named “Alex” who tasked him with getting Cash to provide details about Parliament’s inner workings, with information then passed to the Chinese state, according to a UK government witness statement cited by the WSJ.
Among the material Cash allegedly provided: “The names and photos of a visiting delegation of Taiwanese defense-ministry officials who visited the UK in 2022,” the WSJ reported.
Reuters also reported that evidence described Cash allegedly sharing “nonpublic details about a security review” into a Chinese-linked attempt to buy the Newport Wafer Fab chip plant and passing political intelligence that gave “real time insights into Parliament’s views.”
Why did the prosecution collapse?
The case collapsed because the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it could not obtain government evidence stating China was a national-security threat at the time of the alleged offenses, the BBC reported.
Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson said a precedent in another spying case meant China needed to have been labeled a “threat to national security”; without that, an Official Secrets Act charge-defined as passing information useful to an “enemy”-couldn’t be proved, according to the BBC and AP.
The BBC also reported he told senior MPs the evidence was “5%” short of what was needed to try for a conviction. Some legal figures disagreed; former DPP Ken Macdonald said, “These statements were more than adequate to proceed with a prosecution in my view,” Reuters reported.
What did the government’s witness statements say?
The government released multiple statements from Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Collins . In them, China is described as conducting “large scale espionage” against the UK and as “the biggest state-based threat to the country’s economic security,” according to the BBC and the WSJ.
The August statement added: “The government’s position is that we will co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must,” the BBC reported.
Collins also wrote of the alleged meeting between Berry and Cai Qi: “It is highly unlikely that one of the most senior officials in China would meet with Mr Berry unless the Chinese state considered him to be someone who could obtain valuable information,” according to Reuters.
How did MI5 characterize the threat and the collapsed case?
AP reported that MI5 Director-General Ken McCallum said: “Do Chinese state actors present a UK national security threat? The answer is of course yes they do, every day,” and said MI5 had intervened to disrupt Chinese activity in the past week.
Reuters reported McCallum added, “Of course, I am frustrated when opportunities to prosecute national security threatening activity are not followed through for whatever reason,” while also noting the broader UK-China relationship is “a matter for the government.”
He also said, “When it comes to China, the UK needs to defend resolutely against threats and seize the opportunities that demonstrably serve our nation,” according to the WSJ.
What do Cash and Berry say?
Cash said he thought Berry worked for a strategic-advisory company in China and that he routinely spoke to him in good faith: “He was my friend and these were matters we were both passionately interested in,” and “I believed him to be as critical of and concerned about the Chinese Communist Party as I was,” according to the WSJ.
After the case collapsed, Cash added he had been placed in an “impossible situation” without “the daylight of a public trial to show my innocence,” and said the published statements were “completely devoid of the context that would have been given at trial,” the BBC reported.
Berry said: “I pleaded not guilty to the charge, and I have been acquitted. … Those reports contained no classified information… and drew on information freely in the public domain, together with political conjecture, much of which proved to be inaccurate. I do not accept that, in so doing, I was providing information to the Chinese Intelligence services,” according to the BBC.
How did China respond?
China’s embassy dismissed the case as “pure fabrication and malicious slander,” and said, “China never interferes in other countries’ internal affairs,” AP reported.
The embassy also called UK statements “rife with unfounded accusations,” Reuters reported.
What’s the political fallout?
The Conservatives accused the Labour government of letting the case die to protect economic ties with Beijing; Kemi Badenoch wrote that events leave “a strong impression that your government undermined Britain's national security because you are too weak to do anything other appease China,” according to the BBC.
Ministers denied interference and said the CPS acted independently; Prime Minister Keir Starmer argued the prosecution depended on how the previous Conservative government characterized China during 2021–23, the BBC reported.
Parliamentary committees have demanded “a fuller explanation for the dropping of charges,” and a formal inquiry has been launched, according to the BBC.
How does this fit into UK law and policy?
AP noted that the century-old Official Secrets Act used in the charges “has since been replaced by new national security legislation.” The broader China policy line-“co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must”-was reiterated in the August witness statement, the BBC reported, while the WSJ emphasized officials’ view of China as “the biggest state-based threat to the country’s economic security.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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