A spy in Beijing: love story and espionage in communist China - Documentary - AT 

For the first time, Bernard Boursicot tells how, out of love for an opera singer, he became a spy for China. A captivating story.
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In 1964, General de Gaulle decided to establish diplomatic relations with Communist China. The same year, a young Breton of modest means, recruited by the Quai d'Orsay, arrived in Beijing. He becomes an accountant at the French embassy and soon meets Shi Peipu, a charismatic and androgynous opera singer. Love at first sight was immediate, but Bernard Boursicot backed away, not daring to engage in a homosexual relationship. By lying, Shi Peipu manages to overcome his reluctance by making him believe that he is a woman. A few years later, arrested by the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution, the artist escaped punishment by promising to teach his companion the precepts of Maoist ideology. To protect the one he loves, the small, uneventful official then agrees to deliver confidential documents to the Chinese authorities. A double life that he led smoothly until 1983, before being unmasked by Commissioner Nart and sentenced to six years in prison.
PSYCHODRAMA
How do you end up betraying your homeland? What is the life of an ordinary spy like? How do we manage to blind those around us? And, in the case of Bernard Boursicot, to blind yourself? Hiding in Brittany since his release, the former double agent comes out of his silence for the first time. He agreed to return to the psychodrama that marked his life, between manipulation, betrayal and passion, and to deliver its truth, almost twenty years after the release of David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly, which told his incredible story.
“A Spy in Beijing”
Director: Nicolas Jallot
Production: ARTE France, Ladybirds Films
© ARTE - 2011