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A Chinese dissident who orchestrated an anti-government protest in China after fleeing to the UK has claimed that a “pro-regime” interpreter used by a British police force berated him when he sought help.
Hong Qi, who made headlines last year after using a mobile phone while in the UK to remotely project anti-regime slogans on to a building in his home city, Chongqing, contacted police after discovering that his bank accounts had been frozen.
The Chinese national rang 101, the UK non-emergency number, on 20 December and asked to speak to the closest police force via an interpreter out of concern he would have to sleep rough with his wife and two teenage daughters due to lack of funds.
Instead of receiving advice from Devon and Cornwall police, Qi, 43, claims the interpreter assigned to the call launched a political tirade, asking him why he did not “love China” and taunting him for his lack of money.
Qi, who along with his family had been staying in Exeter, explained, in a call that began at 2.54pm and lasted 20 minutes, that his bank accounts had been frozen by the Chinese authorities, leaving him unable to pay for accommodation for his wife and children.
According to Qi, the interpreter – who spoke with a mainland Chinese accent – interrupted the conversation to challenge him.
“China is so good, why did you come out?” the interpreter allegedly asked. “You came out to claim political asylum? You brought your children out here to suffer.”
When Qi attempted to convey the desperation of his situation, he claims the interpreter refused to pass the message to the police representative on the call.
“I will not translate your emotions,” the interpreter said, according to Qi. “On what grounds should the British help you? If you have money, it is convenient everywhere.”
On 21 January, 22 days after he made a complaint, Devon and Cornwall police informed Qi, who has recently been granted asylum in the UK, that responsibility for the interpreter lay with a contractor that is paid £130,000 a year to provide translation services.
The contractor did not respond to a request for comment. The force has failed to provide a copy of the recording to Qi despite requests. The Information Commissioner’s Office has noted the force’s breach and issued a reprimand.
Qi’s allegation will add to fears of the widespread infiltration of the Chinese interpreting community by the United Front Work Department, an organ of the communist regime in China that is said to seek to suppress political dissent and shape opinion abroad.
A Home Office-sponsored report that was declassified in February pinpointed the dearth of Chinese language skills within the police as a risk given the attempts at infiltration of the interpreting community by the Chinese Communist party and organised crime.
The report’s author, David Wilson, a regional coordinator for the organised immigration crime domestic taskforce at West Midlands police and a former detective inspector, said there was “a lot of compromise” of Mandarin interpreters in the UK.
He said: “The United Workers Department will co-opt everybody. We have had it that people will absolutely not talk in front of interpreters. So we have had compromise. This is not unusual. The compromise will come both from the Chinese state and organised crime groups.”
Wilson said a solution was to increase the number of Mandarin speakers within British policing. His report noted that officers were at times having to rely on Google Translate to do their work.
During the recent trial of two men convicted of spying for China – including a UK Border Force officer – the court heard that eight suspects arrested in May 2024 as part of the alleged see spy ring had to be released after a shortage of interpreters meant the contents of their phones and laptops could not be translated before the 14-day statutory detention limit was reached. The suspects later left the UK.
Qi said he had been left at his lowest ebb after the conversation with the police interpreter. “To me, she was clearly pro-regime,” he said. “The police need to deal with this.”
Qi’s protest last August in Chongqing, a city of 30 million people, was staged on the eve of a major military parade and involved the projection on to a building of slogans such as “Only without the Communist party can there be a new China”.
The police soon after found the source of the projection in a hotel room. Qi later released video footage of five police officers entering the hotel room, rushing to the window and finding the projector hidden behind a half-closed curtain.
Qi, who was operating the projector and surveillance camera from London where he had arrived four days earlier, had left a handwritten letter on the coffee table addressed to the officers. “Even if you are a beneficiary of the system today, one day you will inevitably become a victim on this land,” it read.
One of Qi’s posts was watched by 18 million people in four days.
Sam Dunning, director of the research body UK-China Transparency saiid: “After WW2, Britain trained thousands in Russian language skills. Faced by what successive governments all agree are major challenges and threats from China, nothing remotely on this scale is being done today.”
A Devon and Cornwall police spokesperson said: “The Devon and Cornwall police professional standards department carefully reviewed the complaint, but as the interpreter was employed by a third party and not the force, no further action was taken.”
