The last remaining British company owned by Chinese spy Christine Lee will be officially struck off next week, The Epoch Times has learned.
Birmingham-based China UK Link Consultancy Limited—of which Lee was a director for 12 years—will be formally dissolved on June 6, according to documents on Companies House.
The consultancy firm was set up by the solicitor, outed by MI5 as a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agent, in 2009.
Lee resigned as director in May 2022, months after the security services warned MPs she was involved in espionage for the Beijing regime.
Since then, the 59-year-old has quietly stepped away from all her business associations including the lawyer firm that bears her name, Christine Lee & Co Solicitors Limited.
The law business is still trading, however Lee resigned from her post as director following MI5’s sensational revelations that she sought to influence parliament on behalf of the CCP.
The secret security agency took the unusual step of sending an alert to Parliament in January 2022 publicly naming Lee it said “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Prior to the shock announcement, the lawyer had been listed as an active director of eight registered companies—she is now not officially linked to any British business, according to Companies House.
Downing Street Award
In May, another firm bearing her name was officially struck off the company register.Christine Ching Kui Lee Consultancy Limited, a property development business, was dissolved on May 9.
It was set up 20 years ago by Lee, who resigned as director just over a year ago.
In total, the lawyer has been involved in 16 companies since 1994, with the majority based in England.
In December, a company she owned that provided educational support was also shut.
Months before she left and ceased to be a person of significant control in Christine Lee & Co (Education) Limited.
She also resigned as a director of China UK Link Consultancy Limited, Christine Ching Kui Lee ConsultancyLimited, Ataram Properties Limited and SKMD Limited around the same time.
In February 2022, a month after the spy allegations surfaced, Lee applied to have an organisation which won a prestigious Downing Street award, closed down.
The British Chinese Project Limited was dissolved just a few months later, two years after then Prime Minister Theresa May honoured Lee with a No. 10 “Points of Light” accolade for its “outstanding” work.
In a personal letter to Lee at the time, May wrote: “You should feel very proud of the difference that ‘The British Chinese Project’ is making in promoting engagement, understanding, and cooperation between the Chinese and British communities in the UK.
“I also wish you well with your work to further the inclusion and participation of British-Chinese people in the UK political system.”
Lee responded that she was “both surprised and honoured” to have received the award.
She replied, “The well-being of the British Chinese community in the UK will always be of great importance to me and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to assist in any small way with our integration into UK society.”
Facilitated Financial Donations
Lee has not been seen in public since MI5’s spy accusations rocked Westminster.The 59-year-old, who has a home in a gated development in Solihull in the west midlands, had been at the heart of the UK’s Chinese community for more than three decades when unmasked as a CCP agent.
She was alleged to have engaged with MPs while facilitating financial donations from politicians in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland.
The details were contained in a Security Service Interference Alert (SSIA) circulated to parliamentarians by Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
In a covering letter, Lindsay said the MPs she contacted included members of the now disbanded Chinese in Britain All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG).
“I should highlight the fact that Lee has facilitated financial donations to serving and aspiring parliamentarians on behalf of foreign nationals based in Hong Kong and China,” he wrote.
“This facilitation was done covertly to mask the origins of the payments.
“This is clearly unacceptable behaviour and steps are being taken to ensure it ceases.”
The SSIA issued by MI5 said Lee had “acted covertly” in co-ordination with the UFWD of the CCP.
“We judge that the UFWD is seeking to covertly interfere in UK politics through establishing links with established and aspiring parliamentarians across the political spectrum,” it said.
Brent North Labour MP Barry Gardiner, who received donations from Lee in the past, claimed he had been “liaising with our security services” for many years about her.
Analysis of the Register of Members’ Financial Interests showed Lee donated more than £500,000 to Gardiner and Labour between 2015 and 2020, mostly through funding for his staff.
She also donated £5,000 to Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey in 2013, and in 2014 she helped sponsor a Chinese Liberal Democrats dinner to support the party’s then candidate for Somerton and Frome, Sarah Yong.
In 2008 she funded flights for a four-day trip to Beijing for then Labour MP for Hendon Andrew Dismore, in his role as chairman of the Chinese in Britain APPG.
China later dismissed the MI5 warning as “irresponsible.”
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China has “no need to and will never engage in the so-called interference,” saying those behind the accusation “may be too obsessed with James Bond 007 movies and made some unnecessary associations.”
Following the saga, then Home Secretary Priti Patel warned MPs they need to be aware of the threat of interference in British politics.
In a Commons statement, Patel said that the threat of such interference operations by foreign powers was “growing and diversifying.”
She said ministers were working with police and the Crown Prosecution Service to give them additional powers to tackle activities which were not currently illegal.
