UKCT has published several pages of notes on Chen Shirong 陈时荣, a British journalist, entrepreneur and interpreter who has worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Foreign Office. Chen’s work for the Foreign Office overlapped with his work publishing propaganda in cooperation with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party
UKCT’s research, conducted by UCKT director Sam Dunning and researcher Dan Smith, is based mostly on open sources which showed Mr Chen attending annual training courses run by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the UFWD in China. Our research also draws on the work of Microsoft Threat Intelligence, which assessed that a website run by Mr Chen was part of a UFWD propaganda network.
UKCT’s research received coverage in the British press, where Chen offered further response to our findings, telling the Telegraph:
“I have lived in this country for more than 34 years. I came here in 1990 to learn about multimedia in education, then I was recruited by the BBC World Service. I take the UK as my second home.”
“Whenever I do interpretation work for the Foreign Office, I work as a freelancer. I’m bound by the conduct of all translators. I started this work when I worked for the BBC. What I do as a language interpreter is separate from whatever else I do – I perform the duty of the interpreter.
“I’m not aware of any Microsoft flagging of my website. I would totally dispute that. My organisation was registered in the UK and I am self-employed. It has nothing to do with any outside organisations or other countries.”
Read our full report on Chen here. This is part of our work focusing on the CCP’s United Front in the UK.