For the first time in the U.K.’s history, two individuals were convicted of spying for China’s communist regime on Thursday. The development marks the latest chapter in a recurring pattern of espionage being carried out by Beijing in an effort to monitor, harass, and persecute Chinese dissidents and human rights advocates who have fled the country.

The Wall Street Journal reported that a retired Hong Kong police officer named Chung Biu Yuen, who apparently worked as an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in London, as well as a former U.K. Border Force official named Chi Leung Wai were found “guilty of assisting a foreign intelligence service.” Prosecutors say the pair “researched pro-democracy campaigners living in the U.K.” and placed “bounties of £100,000” on the heads of some of the individuals. Wai illicitly used Home Office computers to “search for personal data on Chinese dissidents,” who he referred to as “cockroaches” in his communications with Chinese contacts.

Yuen coordinated the operation out of London’s HKETO office, which, on the surface, is seen as having the sole purpose of promoting commerce. But the offices, which have been established in the U.S. as well as in numerous other countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia, have been increasingly uncovered as overseas spying headquarters for Beijing. The London office was used to target “Nathan Law, Finn Lau and Christopher Mung, who sought refuge in the U.K. after fleeing Hong Kong under threat of arrest for promoting democracy.”

John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive and a pawn of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), vowed that the Hong Kong freedom advocates would be “pursued for life.”

Critics of the communist regime based in the U.S. have also been targeted with bounties and threats from Hong Kong authorities, including Anna Kwok, Frances Hui, Joey Siu, and Dennis Kwok. The CCP’s pattern of engaging in transnational repression has been occurring within the U.S. for at least a decade. Just this week, the trial of Lu Jianwang began in New York City, who is accused of establishing a clandestine Chinese police station to harass and surveil dissidents of Beijing’s human rights violations.

In addition, HKETOs that have been established in New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. have gotten the attention of a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress, who have introduced legislation that would give the secretary of State the authority to shut the offices down. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who introduced H.R. 2661 last year, noted that after the CCP wrested full control of Hong Kong in 2020, it jailed 1,500 political prisoners and turned overseas HKETOs into CCP puppet offices. “HKETOs are pushing out Chinese Communist Party propaganda and spying on Hong Kongers living in the United States — this must stop,” he insisted. “Beijing should not have three extra diplomatic posts in the United States to do its bidding.”

Experts like Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Robert Maginnis, who serves as Family Research Council’s senior fellow for National Security, agree.

“The issue surrounding the Chinese Communist Party’s use of HKETOs is far more serious than many people in the West appreciate,” he told The Washington Stand. “What may appear to be trade and cultural outreach increasingly looks like part of Beijing’s broader influence and intelligence architecture. The CCP uses every instrument of national power — economic, technological, diplomatic, informational, and intelligence-related — to advance its global ambitions. Under Xi Jinping, everything ultimately serves the Party.”

“That’s why concerns surrounding HKETOs should not be dismissed as paranoia,” Maginnis continued. “We are dealing with a regime that practices transnational repression. Beijing no longer seeks merely to control people inside China — it also seeks to intimidate dissidents, Hong Kong democracy activists, Uyghurs, Chinese Christians, and others living abroad. The message is simple: no matter where you live, the Party is watching.”

Maginnis went on to contend that HKETOs “raise several legitimate national security concerns. They provide platforms for intelligence collection on Chinese diaspora communities, facilitate influence operations aimed at shaping political narratives, and normalize authoritarian behavior inside democratic societies. If residents in America or Britain begin to fear criticizing the CCP, Beijing has already achieved part of its objective.”

With a summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping scheduled to occur on May 14-15, Maginnis maintained that the American chief executive should raise the issue of the CCP’s transnational repression directly with his Chinese counterpart. “Failing to do so signals weakness and tacit acceptance of CCP behavior on Western soil,” he emphasized. “Trump should frame the discussion around sovereignty, reciprocity, and national security. Beijing permits almost no equivalent operational freedom for Western organizations inside China, yet it expects broad latitude for its own offices operating in the United States and allied nations.”

“The HKETO controversy is not simply about a few trade offices,” Maginnis added. “It is one more front in the growing contest between free societies and technologically empowered authoritarian regimes. The West ignored too many warning signs over the last two decades. We should not ignore this one.”