Party members working in Brit consulates, unis and firms: leak

Chinese Communist Party members are working in British consulates, banks, universities and some leading companies, according to a Daily Mail report.

The newspaper said a leaked database of 1.95 million registered party members reveals how Beijing's influence stretches into almost every corner of British life, including defense firms and pharmaceutical firms.

It said it is understood that one of the party members to have secured a job in British consulates is a senior official at the mission in Shanghai. Its headquarters is also home to intelligence officers from Britain's security services.

The database, according to the newspaper, was leaked on encrypted messaging app Telegram and passed in September by a Chinese dissident to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

The alliance is composed of some 150 legislators around the world who are concerned by the influence and activities of Beijing.

The leak analysis showed there were more than 600 party members across 19 branches working at British banks HSBC and Standard Chartered in 2016. Both have drawn criticism for their response to Beijing's crackdown in Hong Kong

While there is no evidence that anyone on the party membership list has spied for China, experts say it defies credulity that some are not involved in espionage.

The report also noted that many party members signed up simply to boost their career prospects.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith said the investigation "proves that members of the Chinese Communist Party are now spread around the globe, with members working for some of the world's most important multinational corporations, academic institutions and our own diplomatic services.

"The government must now move to expel and remove any members of the party from our consuls throughout China. They can either serve the United Kingdom or the Chinese Communist Party. They cannot do both."

The Foreign Office said it has "robust procedures to keep information secure and to vet staff at our overseas posts." It is understood it is aware of the employed party members, the Daily Mail said.

A senior Whitehall intelligence source said the revelations did raise security questions.

The list is divided into more than 79,000 branches, many of them affiliated to individual companies or organizations.

In total, the party has more than 92 million members, but competition to join is fierce with fewer than one in 10 applicants successful.

After authenticating the material, with the help of data security analysts Internet 2.0, IPAC passed the database to four media organizations around the world.

Analysis of the data also showed that Chinese academics who are party members attended British universities, where they were involved in potentially sensitive areas of research, including aerospace engineering and chemistry.

Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca - both involved in the development of coronavirus vaccines - employed a total 123 party loyalists.

Firms with defense industry interests - including Airbus, Boeing and Rolls-Royce - employed hundreds of party members.