Define the term 'connections' in regards this case?

Is it that surprising that a man who has lived in a foreign country for the best part of 20years, hobnobbing with high level officials and running his own consultancy advising on British business interests overseas had 'connections' with MI6? Part of the role of MI6 as defined by the Intellegence Services Act of 1994 is to perform tasks relating to the economic well being of the UK. Therefore is not just as likely that Mr Heywood and his mate from MI6 were having a chin wag over Chinese bureaucracy and how to protect the interests of British business and investment overseas? Could this be the "useful" nature of Mr. Heywood as quoted in the Wall Street Journal article? As I alluded to in my last post, the problem is if you mention MI6 then people automatically romanticize the situation and align it to something similar to a Hollywood movie. Even if we assume that Mr. Heywood was providing more detailed and damaging information about a member of the Politburo and Chinese policy to the British Secret Services why would the Chinese authorities and security services have allowed this to continue for 3years up until the point of his death which caused a major political scandal in the country?