The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, handsomely housed in London’s Bedford Square, is responsible for trade relations between the formerly British ‘special administrative region of the People’s Republic’ and the UK, Scandinavian and Baltic states, and Russia. Its organigram boasts a ‘dedicated team for attracting businesses and talents’, including specialists in ‘investment promotion (fintech)’. So far so good: those who detest China’s suppression of Hong Kong also tend to believe its best hope for a return to relative freedom lies in attracting global attention as a hub of trade and finance.
But also on the HKETO chart is ‘Office Manager Bill C.B. Yuen’, who will shortly be attracting headlines of a different kind. While the scandal of Downing Street’s role in the ‘collapsed China spy case’ rumbles on, there’s another prosecution in the offing that may cause even more embarrassment. Yuen is accused with Peter Wai, a UK Border Force officer, of ‘assisting a foreign intelligence service’ and ‘foreign interference’, contrary to the National Security Act 2023. Charged with them last year was Home Office immigration enforcement officer Matthew Trickett, who was found dead shortly after he was released on bail; the death was officially ‘unexplained’.
Yuen and Wai (who both hold dual Chinese-British nationality) deny the charges, which are understood to relate to the trio’s alleged role in surveillance of pro-democracy activists in the UK on whose heads the Hong Kong authorities had offered bounties, and ‘forcing entry into a UK residential address’. An additional charge, also denied, was added against Wai of ‘misconduct in public office’, said to relate to searches of Home Office databases.
Chinese officials denounce the case as ‘vicious interference’ in Hong Kong’s affairs. The Old Bailey trial scheduled for March this year has been deferred to March 2026 but is surely too hot a potato to be deferred again or conveniently cancelled. That a Chinese overseas trade office might have provided cover for intelligence activity, as the prosecution will allege, is one thing. But that the activity might have extended to bounty-hunting and housebreaking on British soil is more shocking. At least, unlike their compatriots in Hong Kong, Yuen and Wai can look forward to a British fair trial.
Thames target
No wonder Conservative MPs are calling for a block on a possible Chinese takeover of Thames Water, the debt-crippled utility that supplies 16 million south-eastern consumers and is currently struggling to seal a rescue package with its creditors. If that fails and temporary renationalisation follows, Hong Kong-based CK Infrastructure (CKI) has declared its eagerness to bid. But that, says the former Tory leader and militant China sceptic Sir Iain Duncan Smith, would be ‘madness… if the Chinese are in charge of these things, they can shut them down any time they like’.
Except that CKI is a globally diversified and respected utility operator which already owns Northumbrian Water and a portfolio of UK power networks. It is run by Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, whose father Li Ka-shing is Asia’s most enduring tycoon, long regarded by China-watchers as too powerful to have to dance to Beijing’s tune.
Evidence for that view came in March when CKI agreed – without consulting higher authority, as it were – to sell its stake in two Panama Canal ports (among other port assets) to a consortium led by the US investor BlackRock. The move was seen as a win for Donald Trump, who had claimed China was ‘operating the canal’ and ‘we’ll be taking it back’.
But Beijing stymied the sale by insisting that its state-owned shipping giant Cosco should take a key stake in the buyers’ consortium – and thereby gain footholds in strategic Latin America and Caribbean ports even if, in deference to Trump, the Panama ports pass to western owners. Negotiations froze; Li senior, 97, cannot hold sway for ever; and Xi Jinping’s ruthless use of Chinese-owned businesses to advance his hostile ambitions continues apace. In operational terms, CKI looks the best willing buyer for Thames Water; in political terms, it could be the worst.
Pizza siege
I’ve never knowingly set foot in a Pizza Hut – and let me also deny ever partying with Prince Andrew at Pizza Express in Woking, though that’s an entirely different story. More to the point, Pizza Hut’s owners are closing 68 UK outlets, putting 1,200 jobs at risk. What’s striking is the pass-the-parcel history of this British franchise of a Texas-based global brand. Directional Capital, a US private equity firm, bought it in January from a management team backed by another US investor, who in turn bought it from Rutland Partners in 2018. Its surviving 64 UK restaurants are being sold to Kentucky-based Yum! Brands, which also owns KFC and Taco Bell.
Pizza Hut is one of a growing line of Italian or Italian-American-themed casual-dining formats that have retrenched: others include Bella Italia, Gusto, Prezzo and – reduced from 25 outlets to three – Jamie’s Italian. For the most part, we might attribute this to the curse of private equity and its debt-led financial engineering of acquisitions it sees only as cash machines. It’s also, of course, a reflection of straitened consumer spending and rising staff costs.
So it’s a pleasure to praise one London chain, Spaghetti House, that has survived under its founding Lavarini family since 1955. Long ago, I was a regular customer in Knightsbridge, though not during the notorious five-day siege in 1975 when staff were held hostage by armed robbers. More recently, enjoying a quiet carbonara at Cranbourn Street, I twitched when an American woman nearby said: ‘Sir, forgive me, but I believe you are a famous person.’
For the umpteenth time, I had to deny being the Succession actor Brian Cox. But at least she wasn’t a private-equity bandit.
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