BOB SEELY: Prince Andrew has been a 'useful idiot' for China and its vast network of spies. And the worst part? He's not the only one...
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The hidden agents of China’s United Front – and there are dozens, possibly hundreds of them operating in Britain – are not spies in the sense of a James Bond film or even a John le Carre novel. Their role is far more subtle but equally dangerous to Britain’s long-term, national security. They inhabit a grey area of espionage, where infiltration and influence peddling are as important as information collecting.
![[I've spoken to former personnel from both MI6 and MI5 who say they were deeply concerned about China’s malign influence]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/16/01/93174175-14195411-I_ve_spoken_to_former_personnel_from_both_MI6_and_MI5_who_say_th-a-205_1734312908362.jpg)
To understand the risk they present, we have to grasp not only what Beijing wants from the West, but how the Chinese government controls its citizens’ lives. China is a Communist, one-party state with a mindset very different from our own. China is at war with the West – not openly as is increasingly the case with Russia, but in a more subtle, non-military struggle for control of the future. It constantly works to undermine Western power and cohesion and increase its own.
President Xi Jinping and Prince Andrew meet in Shanghai in 2018. President Xi Jinping, the leader of a dictatorship with ever-tighter control over 1.4billion people, wants to dominate the world’s future key industries, from solar panels to genomics, mobile communications to medicines – and the raw materials needed to sustain them.
Above all, Xi wants Britain and other nations to be so dependent on China that our ties with the US are loosened. His strategy is that, if war ever comes to the Pacific, the UK and the rest of Europe will be forced to remain neutral or face economic devastation. Such an event would break the already fragile unity of the Western alliance.
