A surprising contact on LinkedIn. A proposal of employment from a headhunter, probably a young woman, based in the Asian nation. The chance to earn around £20,000 part-time preparing a handful of political analyses for a Chinese company containing confidential or “insider” information. Compensation in cryptocurrency or physical money preferred.
It may seem obvious, on this telling, that something about this approach would be suspicious. However, Beijing's powerful Ministry of State Security continues to view it valuable to deploy headhunters to attempt this – leading MI5 to issue multiple warnings about their operations on the internet.
Large-Scale Approaches on Social Media
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said operatives from China were contacting UK citizens on the platform on an extraordinary level, at a rate of 10,000 over the previous two and a half years, seeking governmental, commercial, defense and scientific secrets. But a fresh initiative aimed at politicians and parliament has led the intelligence service to take further action.
A spying alert was issued on Tuesday via the offices of the Commons speaker and his House of Lords equivalent: a single slide after the persistent attempts of Shirly Shen and Amanda Qiu to reach out to MPs, lords, their assistants, economists, research organizations – anyone who might provide information.
Intelligence Approach and Legislative Updates
In the curious style of British intelligence, there was no publication of the security advice from the agency or the interior ministry. Yet the service knew its briefing note would leak once it was emailed out to parliament. Republishing it in the media assists the wider public better identify communications with a deceptive intent.
This warning has the effect of uncovering more information from in and around Westminster, although that is not MI5’s primary purpose. The service aims for people in public life to recognize that just because exchanges on professional networks are not as toxic as on other social platforms, it does not mean they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency believed to have been responding to any specific incident in parliament, although the burst of activity does come after the awkward collapse of the legal case of a former parliamentary aide Christopher Cash and his friend Christopher Berry on a legal detail earlier in the autumn.
Both individuals had been accused of spying for the foreign power – a allegation they denied – but failure to complete a prosecution under the now repealed previous legislation resulted in concerns that the UK's political system had been left unprotected.
Updated Laws and Beijing's Long-Term Goals
Legislation has now been changed, and the security briefing includes a note of its successor: “Individuals involved in espionage activity face significant criminal penalties under the new security law.” This constitutes a crime if a person participates in behavior that is or is likely to “materially assist a overseas spy agency”.
A natural question, though, is what China has to gain. A politician who is not a government minister will have limited access of classified material, and an contact of theirs even less. Yet the Chinese government is also interested in the legislative body: for a period, in recent years, the UK’s approach to China on matters such as the telecom firm or the Uyghur repression or alleged atrocities was being driven by parliamentarians.
Cultural Variations and Persistent Cyber Risks
In part there are cultural differences too. Authoritarian governments like China’s export information gathering techniques and the size of its intelligence apparatus is enormous, engaging 300,000 individuals. Chris Inglis, a US national cyber director under the US administration, said it was occasionally assessed that “China have more English speakers involved in this than Western agencies have personnel with language skills”.
The Chinese government is prepared to cultivate people over the extended period and sometimes even the intelligence services have struggled to differentiate legitimate relationships and espionage. “China has a minimal requirement for what information is deemed to be of value,” the minister responsible Dan Jarvis told parliamentarians on this week, but a rapid shift in the government situation may result in an individual quickly marginal becomes important.
An alternative perspective to think about the relentless efforts at covert intelligence collection is in the broader framework of the international competition between Beijing and the Western nations at a level below the point of direct conflict. China has increased its cyber operations, with the one campaign penetration of phone and data networks in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon compromise of countless internet devices.
Beijing is engaged in relentless efforts to find secret informants on British democracy via digital means because it wants to be challenging, to display power and because it has the capability.
