State Department chief visits China after high-profile espionage case collapses | Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

The Foreign Office chief will travel to China next week as ministers come under pressure over the collapse of a nuclear power plant Sensational espionage caseThe Guardian can reveal.

Oliver Robbins, who as permanent secretary The most senior official at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) will visit China on “long-planned” government business.

The trip takes place in the same week. Ministers are expected to face questions about whether they were involved in dropping charges against two men, including a former parliamentary researcher, accused of spying for Beijing. Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, who have always maintained their innocence, now have no case to answer for.

Conservative MPs will seek to summon ministers to Parliament to explain the sequence of events that led to this the collapse the trial of Cash and Berry, which was scheduled to begin this week.

Downing Street said there was no ministerial or official involvement in the closure of the proceedings.

But in one extraordinary disclosure Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, said prosecutors were forced to drop the case after failing to secure a government witness statement that said China posed a “threat to the national security of the United Kingdom.”

Parkinson told MPs in a letter on Tuesday that “efforts have been made over many months” to obtain that piece of evidence and that without it the case “would not have been successful.” Legal experts have now expressed doubts about this whether it would have been necessary.

The developments have raised questions about the government Diplomatic approach to Beijing faces a critical decision on whether to approve a proposal for a Chinese super-embassy in east London.

Robbins will be the latest senior administration official to travel to Beijing, following recent trips by Peter Kyle, the commerce secretary, to trade talks in September and Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, to high-level meetings in July. Keir Starmer is expected to visit China early in the new year.

A UK Government spokesperson said: “This visit has long been planned as part of the permanent under-secretary of state’s regular trips to the FCDO’s overseas network of embassies and high commissions. This follows the previous permanent under-secretary of state’s visit in April 2023.”

Robbins reportedly attended a meeting in Whitehall in early September where Powell presented details that the government’s evidence would not describe China as an “enemy”.

To prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, prosecutors would have had to prove that the defendants were acting on behalf of an “enemy.”

Parkinson told MPs that the case law changed in July after the Trial of six Bulgarians accused of spying for Russiaand implied that the enemy’s requirements had become more stringent. Some legal experts argue that the hurdle to prosecution has actually been lowered.

Starmer has argued that the case against Cash and Berry was based on the Conservative government’s approach to China, saying the alleged offenses took place in 2022 and early 2023. “You have to prosecute people based on the circumstances at the time of the alleged offense and so the entire focus must be on the Tory government’s policy as it existed at the time,” the prime minister told reporters this week.

Philip Barton, the last permanent secretary at the Foreign Ministry, visited Beijing in spring 2023 for meetings with senior figures, including Liu Jianchao, the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful international department.

Liu last visited London in June for meetings with MPs and ministers, including then-Foreign Minister David Lammy, but was there Reportedly arrested by Chinese authorities shortly after his return. It was him was replaced in his role by Liu Haixing.

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