Opinion | Yellow Peril and Red Faces in Whitehall

By Philip Yeung

MI5 talks up the trumped-up Chinese spy case in Britain as its major triumph. I see it as a case of utter disgrace. There is more than meets the eye and less than meets the eye. Let me explain.

How is it more? I see it as the latest outbreak of the Yellow Peril bigotry. The Yellow Peril was a doctrine planted in the imagination of white people in the 19th century with fear of being numerically overwhelmed by the "culturally backward and racially inferior" yellow race. With roots going back to the 13th-century Mongol Invasion of Europe, it was used to justify their attempted colonial conquest of China.

Now in the 21st century, the Chinese are big hitters on the global stage but this time they are seen as a new menace and culturally "subversive" of Western values.  America is leading a "crusade" against a China maliciously portrayed as an existential threat to Western civilization.

This naked racism comes with cloak and dagger. The timing of the spy story is troubling. President Xi recently met the new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Rio at the G-20 summit, with the latter pledging to pursue a China policy that is "pragmatic and serious". But now, dark clouds are again overhanging the thawing Sino-British relationship. This smells like a deliberate act of sabotage.

MI5 wants us to believe that Chinese spies are overrunning Britain, stealing its industrial secrets and infiltrating its corridors of power. But where is the beef? What exactly are the dirty deeds perpetrated by Chinese operatives? Well, the agency's cupboards are bare. Post-Brexit, Britain's global footprints have shrunk. It needs better friends and bigger trading partners, not imaginary enemies. With Trump's return, America will pursue an America-first policy, and Britain can only hope for crumbs to fall from the Blond Typhoon's greasy KFC table. It ill-serves Britain to continue this foolish campaign of vilification against China which exports expertise in building roads, bridges, and high-speed trains, while America exports wars, weapons and chaos. MI5 has mishit the true target by a country mile.

Why do I say the case is less than meets the eye?  If catching a real spy is so easy, then MI5 should be disbanded. All Britain needs are waiters and gossip columnists to follow the suspects around to cocktail circuits and dinner parties. This case has been hijacked by overeager spy-catchers hungry for results, treating it as if they had won the gold medal for anti-espionage. In truth, they have unjustly ruined the life of an innocent man.

At first glance, the messages exchanged between the alleged spy and the Chinese embassy in London may look suspiciously incriminating. But it is totally bereft of substance and sensitivity. The truth is that the guy is a Chinese expat doing business in China. Naturally he wanted to be in the good books of the Chinese government and was no doubt trying to impress them with his rare royal connections that look wonderful for the bilateral relationship. Logically, what is good for diplomatic relations is good for business. If this qualifies as a spy story, then MI5 has a laughably low threshold for espionage. He doesn't look like a spy, talk like a spy or smell like a spy. The poor man has been living happily in Britain for twenty years. He doesn't deserve to be shown the door for fraternalizing with a disgraced royal. He is only guilty of exaggerating his social importance. But that is not a crime or an infringement of national security. If MI5 wants to nail him as a spy, it must first answer this sixty-four-dollar question: since no sensitive information was discussed, what damage has he done to Britain, except put money into the pocket of a starving and pariah prince? The man should be awarded an OBE, if not a peerage for his act of charity in keeping Prince Andrew alive and well-fed. Instead, he was stuck with the stinky and unwashable stigma of a spy and unceremoniously kicked out of the country. Talk about an ungrateful Britain.

There is a golden rule for spy-catching: If it is too easy, it is a fake case. It seems that Britain's army of anti-agents has nothing better to do.

Britain owes poor Yang Tengbo an official apology. His residency rights should be reinstated forthwith. But please don't invite him back to Buckingham Palace and above all, keep him away from Prince Andrew. The Duke of York is bad news for anybody with a Chinese name and a Chinese face. He should be in splendid color isolation. No yellow. Just lily white.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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