One of the biggest “holes” visited by Knowles, for instance, is the project at Royal Albert Dock, where Chinese involvement has created “London’s most beautiful ghost town”. Since 2012, the original developer – Advanced Business Park (ABP), a Beijing-based construction firm – has shared offices in China with London and Partners, a “growth agency” set up by Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, using British taxpayers’ money, to attract foreign investment. The following year, 2013, Johnson announced the Albert Dock project to great fanfare: it would be a mixture of commercial, retail and living space, plus a “Chinese Business Park” to provide a foothold for Chinese companies in London.

Where Uneasy Streets truly stands out, though, is on the human level. It has a fascinating cast of characters, not least the Chinese migrants to the UK, all of different generations and backgrounds, whom Knowles interviews. Some are taking advantage of being in a democratic country to engage in civil society and politics, which they could never do at home in China: it would be considered “terrorism” or “subversion”. Others are seeking a better future for themselves, an opportunity to cast off the shackles of family expectations. And the motives of the remaining few seem less clear.

So we meet Yijiao, in her late 20s, who organises film screenings in London after finishing a Master’s degree at King’s College. She tells Knowles about the difficulty of working out what to show: China-approved propaganda films will appeal to Chinese students in the UK, but works that would be censored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), such as those made by Uyghur filmmakers, will attract a more international crowd. Yijiao is defiant, and ambitious to chart her own course in life: “Chinese women today are different [from their mothers]… Why would we be the traditional [wives], and cook and look after the kids?”

On the other hand, we meet Ali, a long-time UK resident originally from Beijing. She works as the director of a Confucius Institute; these are notionally language and community centres, typically attached to British universities, but they’ve been accused of being fronts for the CCP. Without being asked, Ali defends the network of Institutes against such accusations, and insists that media reports of “spying” on campuses are untrue – though Knowles points out that in 2022, MI5 reported that 50 Chinese students with links to the Chinese military had been “removed from the UK, and that fears of spying persist”.

Chinese ‘police stations’ in the UK

Even though the Chinese diaspora shares a culture – and to some extent, a language – they’re scattered across the UK. That’s a consequence of fearing Beijing’s reach. China’s informants routinely send information back home. In 2022, human-rights groups revealed that more than 100 overseas Chinese “police stations” had been established, including many in the UK; while they purported to offer services to citizens abroad, they were accused of being staging posts for the intimidation of dissidents.

That China, so distant on the globe from the UK, could have such dire effects – both known and unknown – leads Knowles to write: “The crucial question is not whether, but on what terms, will we live with China from now on, as things come to a head in the opposing camps of those who fear China’s military and technical dominance, and those who adopt an instrumental logic of getting along with China for the benefits it might bring to Britain.” 

Knowles, it turns out, lives on uneasy streets herself. Two years ago, in her north London neighbourhood, the police burst into a flat inhabited by a man whom most locals knew as “Billy”. In subsequent days, Knowles writes, this “slender man, with smiling eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, was arrested and charged alongside two other men with spying for the Hong Kong Security Services, ultimately answerable to authorities in Beijing”. For “Billy” was in reality Chung Biu Yuen, 65, a retired Hong Kong police officer, accused of keeping tabs on pro-democracy activists.

“It took the eruption caused by the arrest of Billy the Spy”, Knowles writes, “to unearth all sorts of rumours and usually buried feelings about China in the neighbourhood”. In a WhatsApp group, one concerned resident asked: “Which block are the spies at?” Since Uneasy Streets went to press, Chung and another man, Chi Leung Wai (aka “Peter”), have become the first people in British history to be convicted of spying for China. Later this month, a judicial review brought by Royal Mint residents will be heard.

★★★★☆

Uneasy Streets is published by Hurst at £22. To order your copy for £18.99, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books