Ministers are under pressure to stop taxpayers’ cash going to two pro-China groups following the scandal of a spy infiltrating Parliament on behalf of Beijing.
The Great Britain-China Centre (GBCC) quango receives £500,000 a year from the Foreign Office and gives Communist Party officials easy access to UK establishment figures.
And a private firm, the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC), which criticised the UK ban on controversial tech firm Huawei from 5G networks, helps run a £4.5million export service for the Department for International Trade.
To reduce the possibility of interference and espionage, the Government is being called upon to stop funding the two organizations.
Miss Lee, who has given £670,000 to Labour and claimed to have successfully lobbied ministers over immigration laws, was mentioned by the Chinese ambassador at a 2012 London film premiere in the same breath as GBCC chairman Sir Martin Davidson
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China co-chairman and leading Beijing critic, said last night: ‘It’s time to cut the funding and make it clear that China’s appalling behaviour can no longer be tolerated.’
After MI5 had accused Christine Lee, a British lawyer of targeting Chinese Communist Party members, it is now.
Along with CBBC and GBCC figures, she has been to several Chinese embassy events. Miss Lee, who has given £670,000 to Labour and claimed to have successfully lobbied ministers over immigration laws, was mentioned by the Chinese ambassador at a 2012 London film premiere in the same breath as GBCC chairman Sir Martin Davidson.
She was among three attendees at last year’s online receptions attended by senior civil servants and politicians. Miss Lee took part in a Chinese New Year event with CBBC chairman Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, senior Foreign Office mandarin Victoria Busby and Boris Johnson’s father Stanley. She received the Chinese ambassador, and Lord Sassoon, the president of CBBC spoke to the call. Lord Mandelson, president of the GBCC was also there.
Miss Lee is also a business associate. She has links with Westminster and the CBBC. Miss Lee founded the British Chinese Project community and runs, together with Neil Carmichael (former Conservative MP), education company UK-China Culture and Education Cooperation Promotion Centre Ltd.
According to his Facebook, he began working for the law firm one year after leaving Parliament. He is also a member of GBCC and works at PLMR, a lobbying company.
Mr Carmichael said last night: ‘I was completely surprised by the announcement about Christine Lee, and, indeed, the timing of it. I did not have any concerns about her activities and of course, my focus was on education.’
A CBBC spokesman said: ‘It’s possible that senior people from CBBC have been at meetings where she may have been present. Her company is not part of CBBC and I can confirm we do not have any relationship. I can state categorically that we have absolutely no relationship with or knowledge of the British Chinese Project.’
The CBBC has received more than £25million in public money in the past decade. The CBBC’s principal contract expired in 2020. It is now receiving £700,000 a year as sub-contractor in the deal to help UK firms export to China. According to the Department for International Trade, there were no contracts in place with CBBC.
In its most recent annual report, the GBCC, whose directors include Boris Johnson’s ex-wife Marina Wheeler QC, boasts of having ‘strengthened and expanded relationships with key Chinese partners in policy-making, legal, judicial and academic sectors in the interest of UK-China relations’. It says it works with China’s Communist Party central committee and youth league.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘The Great Britain-China Centre provides opportunities for the UK to work with China to tackle global challenges such as climate change and to hold China to account on issues of concern.’