China threatened to retaliate against the UK government if ministers targeted parts of its security apparatus under foreign influence rules, the Guardian can disclose.
Chinese officials warned the Foreign Office that the move would have negative consequences for relations according to two government sources with knowledge of the discussions.
The disclosure will raise alarm bells given that ministers have so far refused to apply stricter foreign influence rules on lobbyists acting for China or any part of the Chinese state.
Only Russia and Iran have been included on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme (Firs), which was introduced in July and came fully into force this month.
Firs requires anyone in the UK acting for a foreign power or entity to declare their activities to the government or face criminal sanctions. The enhanced tier covers countries and entities deemed a particular risk and requires extra disclosures. As a result, anyone doing undeclared work on behalf of Iran or Russia faces five years in prison.
The Guardian reported in the spring that instead of targeting China as a whole, ministers were considering including specific parts of the Chinese political system that have been accused of interference in the west on the enhanced tier.
Such entities include: China’s Ministry of State Security, which is its intelligence service; the Chinese Communist party (CCP); the United Front Work Department, which is often referred to as the international arm of the CCP; and the People’s Liberation Army, which is China’s military.
The government insists that countries’ designations in Firs are kept under review. The Foreign Office was contacted for comment.
Ministers are under pressure concerning the consequences of their rapprochement with Beijing and are facing questions about the collapse of a trial of two Britons, including a former parliamentary researcher, who were accused of spying for China.
The trial of Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary aide to Conservative MPs Alicia Kearns and Tom Tugendhat, and his friend Christopher Berry had been due to begin this month, but the case was suddenly dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service on 15 September. Cash and Berry denied the charges.
Government’s refusal to describe China as an “enemy” in witness evidence from a security official led to the case being abandoned.
Jonathan Powell, the prime minister’s national security adviser, is said to have chaired a meeting in Whitehall last month where he told officials the government’s evidence would stop well short of calling Beijing an enemy.
Whitehall sources denied the claim that Powell was involved in restricting government evidence.
The Sunday Times reported that Powell told the September meeting that additional evidence in the trial expected to be given by Matthew Collins, a deputy national security adviser, would have to be based on Labour’s new national security strategy published this year.
That describes China as a “geo-strategic challenge” and not an enemy. Cash and Berry had been accused of allegedly breaching the 1911 Official Secrets Act, which says that a person is guilty of spying if they pass on information that is “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy”.
Government sources said while the meeting involving Powell had taken place, it had been mischaracterised. They said it would not be possible to insist that Collins cite 2025 government policy when the alleged offences had taken place previously, between 2021 and early 2023, when the Conservatives were in power.
Collins had already given written evidence that had been cited by the CPS in its initial summary of the case in April 2024, at which point the accused were said to have acted in a way “prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK” by passing on information “directly or indirectly useful to the Chinese state”.
Government sources said that no evidence put forward by the state was withdrawn or changed and that no pressure of any kind was placed on the CPS. Collins’s evidence was considered important because it would help spell out the impact any alleged espionage would have had.
