London Metropolitan Police’s Asian Hate Crime Group Connected to Alleged Chinese Spy: Report

LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 24: Police Officers on horseback patrol Chinatown on January 24,
Lauren Hurley/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

An Asian hate crime forum for London’s Metropolitan Police has been tied in a report from a British newspaper to the alleged Chinese spy operating in Westminster.

This week, the UK’s domestic security service, MI5, claimed that the founder of the British Chinese Project, Christine Lee had been attempting to gain influence within the House of Commons on behalf of the communist government in Beijing. Lee was also revealed to have contributed around £700,000 in political donations, the vast majority of which was funnelled to left-wing politicians in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties.

On Sunday, a report from The Telegraph claimed that one of Lee’s former associates in the British Chinese Project, Pek-san Tan, currently has a chair on the board of the Metropolitan Police force’s Anti-Hate Crime ESEA (East and Southeast Asian) Forum.

The Met established the group in the wake of the Chinese coronavirus in order to safeguard members of the Chinese diaspora in Britain from hate crimes.

Two sources from within the forum told the paper that Ms Tam had taken advantage of her position in order to conflate criticism of the Chinese Communist Party on issues such as the reported genocide in Xinjiang with “actual” racism against Chinese people.

The CCP has frequently attempted to weaponise the so-called #StopAsianHate movement that sprung up in the wake of the Wuhan virus, even going so far as to accuse Uyghur activists in America as anti-Asian for speaking out against the authoritarian regime’s genocidal treatment of their compatriots.

A Stop Asian Hate rally in London late last year devolved into violence as pro-Beijing people squared off in a street brawl against activists decrying the treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

It is not alleged that Tam had any knowledge of Lee’s alleged spying for the communist regime, however, the two have worked closely together in the past, including when they co-authored a 2012-13 for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on The Chinese in Britain. The pair were also allegedly pictured together with Labour MP Barry Gardiner, the largest recipient of donations from the alleged spy.

Tam also served as the lead press officer for the London Chinatown Chinese Association, whose sponsors include the state-run Bank of China and controversial telecom giant Huawei. The association has been vocal in its support of the draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong, which essentially ended the right to freedom of speech in the former British colony.

Commenting on the Met’s connections to the alleged Chinese spy, Tory MP Nus Ghani said: “Valid criticism of the CCP must not be confused or used as an excuse for the anti-Chinese sentiment.

Ghani, who was sanctioned by Beijing for her efforts to expose the genocide in Xinjiang, added: “But we must not close down legitimate criticism of a malevolent regime which is not only conducting crimes against humanity with the genocide of the Uyghur people but is also actively seeking to infiltrate our democracy.”

The former leader of the Conservative Party and the co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, Sir Iain Duncan Smith said that the British establishment has been “infiltrated with apologists for China”.

“It’s time to clean up,” he said, adding: “Successive British governments have been far too weak on this.”

“China is guilty of gross human rights abuses and trashing the Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong. The idea that criticism of this can be conflated with racism is absolute rubbish.”

Sir Iain has previously raised concerns over Chinese agents targetting political dissidents from Hong Kong and China in Britain.

Speaking to Breitbart London last year, Hong Kong pro-democracy activist in exile Nathan Law said: “I am unable to say that I am completely safe. I have been really vigilant about my surroundings and personal safety, so I hope that I can take care of myself and avoid the suppression physically.”

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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