China is increasingly trying to lure foreign universities, politicians and businesspeople with investment opportunities that are hard to resist. These can seem like legitimate transactions between parties that stand to mutually benefit. Not so, argues Finn Lau, a political exile from Hong Kong and a victim of a brutal attack in London that he believes was politically motivated. Lau’s first-hand experience of the CCP’s tactics make him alert to a strategy that few have heard of: the United Front, an attempt to neutralize countries and institutions that might pose an economic or political threat to China. 

In 2020 then Prime Minister David Cameron pushed to establish a $1-billion UK-China Investment Fund. The University of Cambridge also set up a centre dedicated to Chinese research with close ties to Huawei. Meanwhile an influential UK chamber known as the 48 Group Club was alleged for having close ties with Xi Jingping and the Chinese Communist Party. What’s behind these close ties of the British establishment with China? Are these legitimate transactions, or is something more insidious going on?