BRITAIN'S secret communications spy base at Chung Hom Kok is being shut down, dismantled and moved to northern Australia, from where it will continue to monitor activities in China.
Three of the four massive metal dishes which have dominated the peninsula on southern Hong Kong Island, near Stanley, for more than a decade, have already been shipped out with other hi-tech intelligence-gathering equipment.
'The facility is no longer operating and is being closed down. The equipment is being removed,' a government spokesman said. 'The site will revert to the Hong Kong Government once it is closed.' The installation was operated - and is still controlled - by the British Government's Composite Signals Organisation, a subsidiary of General Central Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham in western England.
Information gathered at Chung Hom Kok was routinely funnelled to Australia for translation and analysis, after which it was passed to Britain, New Zealand and the United States.
London began scaling down operations at the 11-hectare site about two years ago, but the final phase began last November. British and Australian technicians who manned the equipment have left Chung Hom Kok.
China-monitoring formerly carried out at the cliff-top station now takes place at Shoal Bay, near Darwin, in Australia's Northern Territory.