London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Aug 10, 2025

MI6 chief thanks China for ‘free publicity’ after James Bond spoof

Rare response from Richard Moore comes after state news agency posted video mocking western intelligence

The head of MI6 has thanked China’s state news agency for “free publicity” after it posted a James Bond spoof video in response to a statement he made last year that Beijing was the spy agency’s “single greatest priority”.

Richard Moore, codenamed C, intervened after Xinhua released an extraordinary four-minute English-language video featuring a pair of supposed British spies, James Pond and an apparent Marvel universe recruit, Black Window.

Xinhua said the video, entitled No Time to Die Laughing, was leaked footage of a secret meeting between the British spies and their US counterparts. It features an elegantly dressed duo entering a country house and starting to discuss a dossier on Chinese espionage tactics, with canned laughter running throughout.


In reply, Moore tweeted: “Thank you for your interest (and the unexpected free publicity),” and he posted a copy of the speech he gave in November that had provoked Xinhua’s unexpected response.

In his address, the MI6 chief said a rising China had become the spy agency’s single greatest priority for the first time in its history, and he told Beijing it risked “miscalculating through over-confidence” over Taiwan.

It was one of several pointed remarks aimed at Beijing, traditionally an area where British ministers and officials have trodden carefully, including a warning about the spread of Chinese surveillance technology, which Moore said was used in “targeting the Uyghur population in Xinjiang”.

The agents in the video thank M – the Bond films’ moniker for the head of MI6 – for hyping up the Chinese threat. “You know what’s pathetic, using the fictional Chinese debt trap and data trap to secure our massive budget for next year,” Pond says, holding a glass of champagne to toast the agency’s success.

In his speech, Moore said China was asserting control over smaller countries – getting “people on the hook” – in Africa and elsewhere by forcing them to take on onerous borrowing in return for building vital infrastructure or taking control of their data to supply essential services.

Another conceit of the Xinhua video is the claim that it is not China that is tapping phones around the world but the US. Pond – described as “Agent 0.07” – learns from a call with a fictional CIA agent that his phone is being monitored by the Americans.

“Hey Pond, my advice is not to buy yourself a Huawei phone,” the US agent advises. It becomes clear to Pond that his phone is being tapped. “He’s obviously shaken and stirred now,” Black Window says in an aside to the camera.

“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. But to be America’s friend is fatal,” Pond concludes, with not much subtlety, before the conversation switches back to a defence of the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei. The American tells him there is a backdoor in Huawei’s software to allow covert surveillance.

Unexpectedly, this prompts a robust defence of Huawei by Black Window, who appears to have switched out of character: “You gotta stop this backdoor nonsense. If there was any shred of evidence, you folks would have made headlines of it.”

In June 2020 Britain announced it would remove Huawei kit from its 5G phone networks by 2027 after intense pressure from the Trump administration, claiming the technology was a potential security risk.

Nevertheless, the CIA character declines to back down, insisting: “There isn’t any 100% safe and clear cellphone on this planet, otherwise David Cameron and [Angela] Merkel would have gotten one for themselves” – naming former political leaders perhaps to avoid too direct a link to Boris Johnson, the current UK prime minister, already facing other difficulties involving his mobile phone.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Street justice isn’t pretty but how else do you deal with this kind of insanity? Sometimes someone needs to standup and say something
Armenia and Azerbaijan sign U.S.-brokered accord at White House outlining transit link via southern Armenia
Barcelona Resolves Captaincy Issue with Marc-André ter Stegen
US Justice Department Seeks Release of Epstein and Maxwell Grand Jury Exhibits Amid Legal and Victim Challenges
Trump Urges Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to Resign Over Alleged Chinese Business Ties
Scotland’s First Minister Meets Trump Amid Visit Highlighting Whisky Tariffs, Gaza Crisis and Heritage Links
Trump Administration Increases Reward for Arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro to Fifty Million Dollars
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
OpenAI Launches GPT‑5, Its Most Advanced AI Model Yet
Embarrassment in Britain: Homelessness Minister Evicted Tenants and Forced to Resign
President Trump nominated Stephen Miran, his top economic adviser and a critic of the Federal Reserve, to temporarily fill an open Fed seat
The AI-Powered Education Revolution: Market Potential and Transformative Impact
Chikungunya Virus Outbreak in Southern China: Over 7,000 Hospitalized
French wine makers have seen catastrophic damage to vines that were almost ready to be harvested after the worst fires in more than 70 years burned through the south of the country
US Lawmaker Probes Intel CEO’s China Ties Amid National Security Concerns
Brazilian President Lula says he’ll contact the leaders of BRICS states to propose a unified response to U.S. tariffs
Trump Open to Meeting Putin as Soon as Next Week, with Possible Trilateral Summit Including Zelenskiy
Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau spark dating rumors, joining high stakes world of celeb-politician romances
US envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow to seek a breakthrough in the Ukraine war ahead of President Trump’s peace deadline
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Karol Nawrocki Inaugurated as Poland’s President, Setting Stage for Clash with Tusk Government
Trump Signals JD Vance as ‘Most Likely’ MAGA Successor for 2028
US Charges Two Chinese Nationals for Illegal Nvidia AI Chip Exports
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
U.S. Tariff Policy Triggers Market Volatility Amid Growing Global Trade Tensions
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
Representative Greene Urges H-1B Visa Cuts Amid U.S.-India Trade Tensions
U.S. House Committee Subpoenas Clintons and Senior Officials in Epstein Investigation
Sydney Sweeney Registered as Republican as Controversial American Eagle Ad Sparks Debate
Trump Accuses Major Banks of Politically Motivated Account Denials and Prepares Executive Order
TikTok Removes Huda Kattan Video Over Anti-Israel Conspiracy Claims
Trump Threatens Tariffs on India Over Russian Oil Imports
German Finance Minister Criticizes Trump’s Attacks on Institutions
U.S. Proposes Visa Bond of Up to $15,000 for Some Applicants
U.S. Farmers Increase Lobbying Amid Immigration Crackdown
Elon Musk Receives $23.7 Billion Tesla Stock Award
Texas House Paralyzed After Democrats Walk Out Over Redistricting
Mexican Cartels Complicate Sheinbaum’s U.S. Security Talks
Mark Zuckerberg Declares War on the iPhone
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
Tesla Seeks Shareholder Approval for $29 Billion Compensation Package for Elon Musk
Nvidia is cutting prices on its RTX 50-series graphics cards after sales slowed and inventories piled up
Ghislaine Maxwell Transferred to Minimum-Security Prison Amid Ongoing DOJ Discussions
U.S. Tariffs Surge to Highest Levels in Nearly a Century Under Second Trump Term
×