The accusations were sensational. Prosecutors said that a young British teacher and a researcher at the heart of Parliament had worked together as spies for China, funneling sensitive information to Beijing’s officials.

这起指控轰动一时。检方称，一名年轻的英国教师与一名议会内部研究员合谋为中国从事间谍活动，向北京官员传递敏感信息。

But weeks before their trial was to begin, the case collapsed. Prosecutors said it had fallen apart because the government would not confirm that at the time of the spying, China represented an enemy or a threat to national security. The two men, who had always denied the charges, were acquitted.

然而，就在庭审即将开始几周前，该案突然撤销。检方表示，案件无法推进的原因是政府不愿确认间谍活动发生时，中国构成敌人或国家安全威胁。这两名始终否认指控的男子最终被判无罪。

This week, the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, which was under pressure to explain why the case had collapsed, made the unusual decision to release three court documents that detailed some of the accusations against the men.

面临解释撤销案件原因的舆论压力，斯塔默政府作出了不同寻常的决定，公开了三份法庭文件，详细阐述了对两人的部分指控内容。

The documents offer insight into how British security officials view the rising threat posed by China and its extensive information gathering abroad. And they raise tantalizing questions about how Western countries should respond.

这些文件不仅让外界得以窥见英国安全官员如何看待中国崛起带来的威胁及其在海外的广泛信息收集活动，也引发了关于西方国家应如何应对这一问题的深刻讨论。

Consulting for a company — or something more sinister?

是企业咨询——还是更阴险的行为？

The spying case first came to public attention in April 2024, when the two men — Christopher Cash, then a parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a teacher and consultant based in China — were charged with gathering and providing information to China that was “prejudicial to the safety and interests” of Britain from December 2021 to February 2023.

这起间谍案首次进入公众视野是在2024年4月，当时两名被告——时任议会研究员克里斯托弗·卡什与旅居中国的教师兼顾问克里斯托弗·贝里——被控在2021年12月至2023年2月期间，收集并向中国提供“损害英国安全与利益”的信息。

Both men, who met while teaching in China, denied the charges from the start. Mr. Berry said in a statement to the BBC on Thursday that he had written reports for “a Chinese company which I believed had clients wishing to develop trading links with the U.K.” and that his reports covered economic and commercial issues in the public domain, “together with political conjecture, much of which proved to be inaccurate.”

两人在中国任教期间相识，他们从一开始就对所有指控予以否认。贝里上周四向BBC发表声明称，他曾为一家中国公司撰写报告，他认为该公司有客户“希望与英国发展贸易关系”，报告内容涵盖公开领域的经济和商业问题，“以及一些政治推测，其中大部分后来被证明不准确。”

Mr. Cash said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr. Berry was a friend who he believed worked for a “strategic advisory company” helping clients invest in Britain. He acknowledged that he “routinely spoke and shared information” with him about Chinese and British politics. “These were matters we were both passionately interested in,” he said. “I believed him to be as critical and concerned about the Chinese Communist Party as I was. It was inconceivable to me that he would deliberately pass on any information to Chinese intelligence.”

卡什上周三发表声明表示贝里是自己的朋友，而他一直认为贝里效力于一家“战略咨询公司”，协助客户在英国投资。他承认自己“经常与贝里谈论并分享”有关中英政治的信息，“这些都是我们两人都非常感兴趣的话题。我当时认为他和我一样，对中国共产党持批评和担忧态度，我根本无法想象他会故意向中国情报部门传递任何信息。”

While the allegations were never tested in court, the documents published on Wednesday highlighted the nuggets of politically sensitive information that Mr. Cash was accused of sending to Mr. Berry. Some of it ended up in the hands of one of China’s most powerful officials, according to the British government.

尽管这些指控从未经过法庭验证，但上周三公开的文件重点列出了卡什被指控向贝里发送的一系列具有政治敏感性的信息要点。英国政府称，其中部分信息最终传到了一位中国高官手中。

In May 2022, for instance, the documents say that Mr. Berry told his contact — a man referred to as “Alex,” whom the British police assessed to be a Chinese intelligence agent — of a “secret” meeting between two senior British lawmakers and officials from Taiwan’s defense ministry. Mr. Cash sent him a photograph of some of the attendees at the meeting and left a voice note describing it. Mr. Berry told Alex the identities of the Taiwanese officials and noted that they had discussed Taiwan’s strategy for a potential attack from China, the documents say.

例如，文件显示，2022年5月，贝里向其联络人——一名化名“亚历克斯”、被英国警方认定为中国情报人员的男子——透露了两名英国资深议员与台湾防务部门官员举行“秘密”会议的消息。卡什向贝里发送了会议部分参会者的照片，并留下语音信息描述会议情况。文件称，贝里还向亚历克斯透露了台湾官员的身份，并指出他们讨论了台湾应对中国潜在攻击的战略。

On another occasion in 2022, Alex asked Mr. Berry about actions that Britain and America would take in relation to imports from Xinjiang, the document says. Congress had banned many imports from the area in 2021 because of forced labor concerns. The document says that Mr. Berry passed the request on verbatim to Mr. Cash and offered to pay for the information, and that Mr. Cash replied with information the same day.

文件还提到，2022年另一个场合，亚历克斯询问贝里，英美两国将对新疆相关进口产品采取何种措施。此前在2021年，美国国会因强迫劳动问题禁止了多项从新疆进口的产品。文件显示，贝里将这一请求原封不动地转达给卡什，并提出为信息付费，而卡什当天就提供了相关信息。

The British government’s attitudes toward Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, were also of interest to Alex, who requested information from Mr. Berry about it at one point in 2022, according to the documents, saying it should be prioritized ahead of other tasks.

文件显示，英国政府对华为的态度同样引起亚历克斯关注，他在2022年的某个时间向贝里索要相关信息，并要求将其置于其他任务之上优先处理。

A meeting with ‘one of the most senior officials’ in China

与中国“一位最高层官员”的会晤

All three documents released Wednesday were written by Matthew Collins, Britain’s deputy national security adviser. He based his statements, which were requested by prosecutors in preparation for the trial, on evidence provided by counterterrorism officers who had conducted the investigation.

上周三公开的三份文件均由英国副国家安全顾问马修·柯林斯撰写。这些声明是应检方庭审准备需求而提交，内容基于参与调查的反恐官员提供的证据。

In his first report, Mr. Collins said that Mr. Berry met with a senior Chinese Communist Party official in July 2022 in the city of Hangzhou and that Mr. Berry had afterward left a voice note for Mr. Cash telling him about the meeting. “You’re in spy territory now,” Mr. Cash replied, the document says.

柯林斯在第一份报告中称，2022年7月，贝里在杭州与一名中国共产党高层官员会面，随后向卡什发送语音信息告知此事。文件显示，卡什回复称：“你现在已经进入间谍领域了。”

While Mr. Collins does not name the Chinese official, his second statement says the man became Beijing party secretary in 2017 and was elevated to the Politburo standing committee in 2022. Only one person fits this description: Cai Qi, a longtime associate of President Xi Jinping and one of the most powerful men in Chinese politics.

尽管柯林斯没有指明这位中国官员的姓名，但他在第二份声明中提到，该男子于2017年出任北京市委书记，2022年晋升为中央政治局常务委员会委员。符合这一描述的只有一人：习近平主席的长期助手、中国政坛最具影响力的人物之一蔡奇。

“It is highly unlikely that one of the most senior officials in China would meet with Mr. Berry unless the Chinese state considered him to be someone who could obtain valuable information,” Mr. Collins writes.

柯林斯在文件中写道：“若非中国政府认为贝里能够获取有价值的信息，绝不可能有中国最高层官员与他会面。”

Mr. Cash had been the director of the “China Research Group,” a caucus of Conservative lawmakers focusing on how Britain should respond to the rise of China that was blacklisted by Beijing in 2021. Mr. Collins writes that this role gave Mr. Cash valuable access to senior lawmakers and to information about the government’s approach to China that was not in the public domain.

卡什曾担任“中国研究小组”负责人，该小组由保守党议员组成，专注于研究英国应如何应对中国的崛起，该小组于2021年被中国列入黑名单。柯林斯在文件中指出，这一职位让卡什有机会接触到资深议员，并获取有关英国对华政策的非公开信息。

Unsolved mysteries

未解之谜

It is impossible to know the full picture that might have emerged in a trial. Did Mr. Cash simply share sensitive information with his friend because he wanted to help him in his job for a private company? Was Mr. Berry’s possible meeting with Mr. Cai unrelated to the work he did for the contact known as Alex?

由于庭审未能举行，我们永远无法得知案件的完整真相。卡什向朋友分享敏感信息，仅仅是为了帮助他在私人公司的工作吗？贝里与蔡奇可能的会面，是否与他为化名亚历克斯的联络人所做的工作无关？

Mr. Cash said that the release of the documents had placed him “in an impossible position” because they had not been scrutinized in court. “I have not had the daylight of a public trial to show my innocence,” he said.

卡什表示，文件的公开让他陷入了“两难境地”，因为这些内容从未经过法庭的审查。“我没有机会通过公开庭审来证明自己的清白，”他说。

China always rejected the spying charges, and Beijing claimed vindication after the case collapsed. “The British legal authorities’ decision to abandon the charges fully demonstrates that these so-called spying for China allegations were nothing more than a fabrication,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said last week.

中国始终否认这些间谍指控，并在案件撤销后宣称自己被证明无辜。中国外交部发言人郭嘉昆上周表示：“英方司法部门既然已经撤销起诉，充分说明所谓‘为中国从事间谍活动’的说法纯属子虚乌有。”

Mr. Starmer was pressured into releasing the statements in an attempt to quell accusations that the government had undermined the case to avoid damaging trade with Beijing, a claim he rejected.

斯塔默在压力下发表声明，试图平息政府为避免损害与北京的贸易关系而破坏案件的指控，他对该指控予以否认。

The key point in the documents, from the government’s perspective, is that Mr. Collins does not play down the threat posed by China. He writes that its “espionage operations threaten the U.K.’s economic prosperity and resilience, and the integrity of our democratic institutions.”

从政府的角度来看，文件的核心内容在于柯林斯并未淡化中国带来的威胁。他在文件中写道，中国的“间谍活动威胁到英国的经济繁荣和韧性，以及我们民主制度的完整性”。

But the documents also show that in Mr. Collins’s second and third statements — submitted after Labour came to power — he underlined the government’s desire to maintain good relations with Beijing.

但文件同时显示，在工党上台后提交的第二和第三份声明中，柯林斯强调了政府希望与中国保持良好关系的意愿。

“The U.K. government is committed to pursuing a positive relationship with China to strengthen understanding, cooperation and stability,” he wrote.

“英国政府致力于与中国建立积极关系，以增进理解、加强合作并维护稳定，”他写道。

Mr. Starmer’s opponents argue that language would have made it harder for prosecutors to prove the men had worked for an “enemy” of Britain, as specified in the 1911 Official Secrets Act under which they were charged. But some legal experts reject this argument, saying that Mr. Collins’s statements included enough to go to trial and suggesting that blame for the case’s collapse may lie with mistakes made by prosecutors.

斯塔默的反对者认为，这样的表述会让检方更难证明两人是为英国的“敌人”工作——这是依据1911年《官方机密法》指控他们的关键依据。但一些法律专家反驳了这一观点，称柯林斯的声明中包含了足够的庭审证据，并暗示案件撤销可能应归咎于检方的失误。

The scandal over the collapsed trial has illuminated one thing clearly, experts say: the unresolved dilemma for Britain over how to manage China, which remains both a major economic trading partner and potentially a dangerous adversary.

专家表示，这场撤案丑闻清晰地揭示了英国在对华政策上的未解困境：中国既是英国重要的经济贸易伙伴，又是潜在的危险对手。