{"id":74926,"date":"2025-10-28T04:32:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T19:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/27\/critical-element-uk-china-spying-trial-collapse"},"modified":"2025-10-28T04:32:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T19:32:52","slug":"missing-critical-element-caused-uk-china-spying-trial-to-collapse-say-prosecutors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=74926","title":{"rendered":"Missing \u2018critical element\u2019 caused UK China spying trial to collapse, say prosecutors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Refusal to describe China as security threat meant \u2018all routes were closed\u2019, says director of public prosecutions<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s evidence in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/law\/2025\/oct\/08\/why-has-the-uk-dropped-its-trial-of-two-alleged-china-spies\">China espionage trial<\/a> was missing a \u201ccritical element\u201d that meant there was \u201cno other option\u201d but to collapse the case, prosecutors insisted on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, did not directly blame anyone for the collapse of the trial but said the government\u2019s refusal to describe China as a national security threat meant \u201call routes were closed\u201d.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/27\/critical-element-uk-china-spying-trial-collapse\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Refusal to describe China as security threat meant \u2018all routes were closed\u2019, says director of public prosecutionsThe government\u2019s evidence in the China espionage trial was missing a \u201ccritical element\u201d that meant there was \u201cno other option\u201d but to colla&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,3411,667,86,4,52,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-crown-prosecution-service","category-espionage","category-law","category-politics","category-uk-news","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74927,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74926\/revisions\/74927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}