Cindy Yu has narrated this article for you to listen to.
On Monday, I was surprised to discover a photo of myself in the papers next to a parliamentary researcher who had been arrested on suspicion of being a ‘Chinese agent’. The photo was taken in February at a panel in parliament entitled ‘Defeating the dictators’. The man and I are both twentysomething China watchers who work in Westminster. I’d got to know him in a professional capacity, but every so often, we had a drink together or hung out at a friend’s flat. It was only when I saw reports of his arrest that I realised I hadn’t heard from him since an evening six months ago when we teamed up to play Codenames, the board game in which rival spymasters race to rendezvous with their agents. We smashed the other team.
‘Everybody can be recruited in the right circumstances.
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