The Chinese ‘spy’ cosying up to Prince Andrew is part of a much more dangerous game

China’s espionage network is assiduously preparing the ground – not to strike at the United Kingdom, but to ensure its passivity in the event of war against the United States, writes Michael Sheridan

Xi Jinping likes princes. The Chinese leader is one himself. He came to power through lineage and guile as the “princeling” son of an old revolutionary.

But although he shares an air of entitlement befitting any monarch, there was no chemistry between Xi and the House of Windsor when he stayed in Buckingham Palace as the guest of the late Queen.

Chinese dealings with foreign figures are not based on sentiment but on utility. Xi likes his princes – be they merchants or minor royals – to be vain, greedy or foolish. Preferably all three. We can perhaps think of examples.

So it is tempting to write off the latest episode involving Prince Andrew and a mysterious, alleged Chinese agent as absurdity. Equally, the doings of Xi’s admirers in Britain, such as the activities of the 48 Club, a collection of business types, are often an invitation to satire.

I cannot read an account of these antics without thinking of the reception for the emperor of China in Anthony Trollope’s novel of 19th-century greed and folly, The Way We Live Now. Invited by the novel’s great fraud, Augustus Melmotte, the emperor sits inscrutable and mute above a crowd of financiers and speculators who have come knowing nothing about China, but in the expectation of advantage. It all ends unprofitably for them, of course. It ends worse for Melmotte, a swindler who has bought his seat in parliament, who poisons himself.

But irony is not enough when it comes to today’s peddlers of influence. Xi and the Communist Party are not interested in flogging a few more bits of dodgy telecoms kit or skimming a few million off a public offering to fund the education of their privileged children. They are way beyond all that.

The best way to grasp what the Chinese state is up to is to understand that the aim of its policy is not poison but anaesthesia. The party’s United Front Work Department honed its skills at deception in the 1940s when it persuaded a swathe of Chinese liberals and intellectuals that it would do them no harm.

While Xi Jinping’s father fought in the Red Army that marched on Beijing, his comrades in “united front” work sapped the willpower of their opponents so that the rival armies eventually collapsed and fled. Victory without a shot is the greatest prize in traditional Chinese military strategy.

What does this mean today? It means that China is assiduously preparing the ground – not to strike at the United Kingdom but to ensure its passivity in the event that it goes to war against the United States.

That is the task of Beijing’s army of bankers, traders, academics, officials and think-tankers: to deliver a softly persuasive message via their fellow travellers that China is not a threat, seeks only a fairer world order and is merely striving for its rights in what Xi Jinping and his “friend” Vladimir Putin agree are “changes unseen in a hundred years”.

Rumours are that Xi has snubbed Donald Trump’s invitation to attend the inauguration of the president-elect next month (a stroke of genius on Trump’s part, it must be admitted). His presence would have drained the tension from relations between the two giant powers. But it could have only been a truce.

There are dark thinkers in Beijing who plan, as planners must, for the day when shots are fired in the seas off China. Let’s imagine that.

A reckless Chinese destroyer captain illuminates an American warship with his fire control radar for a minute too long (I have heard a true scenario of this kind from the Japanese government). The rules of engagement kick in, missiles fly and the next thing you know, the sky is full of warplanes.

This would all happen so fast that the Americans have spent hours persuading the Chinese to agree to instant communications between their militaries. The Chinese are half-hearted about this because uncertainty is a warfare principle for them.

Make no mistake; if the United States is at war with China in the morning, Britain is involved in the afternoon. There would be instant requests for intelligence-sharing, the use of the controversial Indian Ocean base at Diego Garcia, facilities on Cyprus and, ultimately, stockpiles in East Anglia.

This country could not say no – but it might hesitate for a fatal moment. That is exactly the instant of hesitation for which the Chinese state will expend unlimited intelligence resources and influence invested far into the future – the ability to make America’s allies think twice. And if the unthinkable happens, the Europeans and the Asians will look to us as first responders for their cue.

That is why a prime minister, a deputy prime minister, a foreign secretary and a chancellor of the exchequer who collectively know little about China might turn to Trollope for a reminder of the weaknesses of Britain itself. They cannot let Xi Jinping be in any doubt of their commitments.

Princes and their follies have a habit of ending badly; the supreme task for the government is making sure it does not happen this time.

Michael Sheridan, longtime foreign correspondent and diplomatic editor of The Independent, is the author of The Red Emperor published by Headline Press at £25