BRITAIN'S Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, views China as a ''major target'' for spying, according to Baroness Park, a former controller of the spy network.
The Government has allowed Baroness Park to speak about some of its methods following a new openness announced in the Queen's Speech last week.
She revealed that Hong Kong and China are pivotal to MI6 operations.
''I can't think of a more delicate subject to talk about than Hong Kong,'' she said on the BBC Panorama programme last night.
''I can only remind you that China is, of course, a great country and a major target, and I think you can be absolutely sure that the service will have been enabled to put what effort is necessary into covering whatever Her Majesty's Government wants to know about that part of the world.'' The Baroness does not go into Hong Kong or China operations in any detail but US Ambassador James Lilley, a former CIA Station Chief in Beijing, said MI6 had a reputation for working very closely with industry, planting agents or exchanging commercial information.
Baroness Park said: ''For instance, if you knew that a British company was coming out to try and get, say, the order for helicopters in a particular country, and you knew from other sources that, let's say the Italians and French, were both bidding, you would certainly tell the man you wanted to help that so he was fore-armed and knew that he had competition.'' Baroness Park was based in Hanoi in 1969 when Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Foreign Secretary Denis Healey were denying Britain's involvement in the Vietnam War.