Tomas Roberto is UK Head of Public Affairs and Advocacy at The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation
For years, Britain has extended diplomatic and legal privileges to Hong Kong’s Economic and Trade Office (HKETO), granting it immunities and protections under the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Act 1996 on the basis that Hong Kong remained autonomous from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under “one country, two systems.”
That assumption holds as much water as a colander.
Since the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020, Hong Kong has been absorbed into the authoritarian machinery of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — democracy has died, newspapers have been shuttered and journalists, including Briton Jimmy Lai, have been sentenced to decades in prison simply for speaking against the Government. All of which is in breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a fact not lost on HM Government. Yet astonishingly, the U.K. continues to host the HKETO as if nothing has changed.
As the old maxim goes “to govern is to choose”. To date, this Government has chosen complacency.
This week, at the Old Bailey, a disturbing case has laid bare the consequences — individuals operating in the U.K., with direct links to the HKETO, were found to have engaged in a coordinated campaign of surveillance, intimidation, and harassment against parliamentarians and Hong Kongers living in Britain.
This is not speculation or “spy panic”. It was the subject of a National Security Act trial — the first in Britain to involve China and Hong Kong. Originally, 12 individuals were arrested on suspicion of breaching the NSA. Yet, in a staggering failure, only three were ultimately charged, as the Police lacked the capability to translate critical evidence into English.
Two, Bill Yuen and Peter Wai, have just been found guilty of assisting foreign intelligence services and engaging in foreign interference. The third man, Matthew Trickett, was found dead in a park before the trial — his death ruled a suicide.
Their connections to the HKETO were central to the case.
Bill Yuen served as the office’s manager. Yuen used HKETO-linked bank accounts to channel £100,000 into surveillance operations targeting Hong Kongers in the U.K. This was not an individual gone rouge; it was funded through the very institution granted diplomatic privileges by the British state. Even more brazenly, his legal defence has reportedly been funded by the HKETO, raising serious questions about institutional complicity whilst HKETO representatives regularly attended the trail.
Peter Wai, a former Border Force officer and volunteer with the City of London Police, acted as a field operative within this network. He was paid a monthly retainer of £4,500 to monitor dissidents; track movements, identify addresses, and compile photographic intelligence. He also accessed sensitive Home Office databases to obtain personal information on targets, including immigration records, passport data and school records. Culminating in him attempting to break into the home of a Hong Konger in the U.K by trying to flood it.
This represents not only foreign interference, but a direct penetration of British government systems.
Taken together, these allegations paint a chilling picture: a network funded and directed through a quasi-diplomatic outpost, targeting individuals exercising their lawful rights in the U.K.
This is the reality of transnational repression.
The implications go far beyond the Yeun and Wai. Evidence points to links with two former Chief Superintendents of Hong Kong police — this is tantamount to the extension of CCP-style policing into the UK— using proxies, funding channels, and institutional cover to pursue critics abroad.
And let us be clear: this is entirely consistent with stated policy. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee has openly vowed to pursue dissidents overseas “to the ends of the earth”, such as my colleague Chloe Cheung who has a HK$1 million bounty on her for simply advocating for Hong Kong’s democracy. Whilst former Hong Kong Executive Council convenor Regina Ip said it was “legal” for HKETOs to gather intelligence on activists and said of individuals who support Hong Kong’s democracy “The [trade office] must pay attention, probably by gathering intelligence”.
The CCP does not hide its intent — it openly and brazenly declares it.
What is new is the apparent willingness to operationalise that intent on British soil.
The U.K. can no longer pretend that the HKETO is a benign trade office. It is now an office for Intimidation and Repression in Britain
No sovereign country should tolerate this.
The legal framework underpinning the HKETO’s presence is now indefensible. The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Act 1996 was built on a promise that Hong Kong would remain autonomous until 2047 — that promise has been decisively broken.
Continuing to grant special status sends a dangerous signal: that the U.K. is willing to tolerate foreign authoritarian interference so long as it arrives dressed in the language of trade and diplomacy.
That must end. Parliament should move urgently to repeal the 1996 Act and strip the HKETO of its privileges and close it immediately.
Britain has, quite rightly, offered refuge to Hong Kongers fleeing political persecution. It cannot simultaneously allow the apparatus of that persecution to operate, unchecked, within its own borders.
This verdict should be a turning point. The question is whether the Government is prepared to act on what has now been laid bare.
Because if it does not, it will not only be Hong Kong’s freedoms that have been extinguished, it will be Britain’s resolve to defend its own.
