An unexpected contact on LinkedIn. A proposal of work from a headhunter, probably a young woman, based in the Asian nation. The chance to earn around £20,000 part-time preparing a small number of political analyses for a Chinese company containing confidential or “insider” information. Payment in digital currency or cash preferred.
It might appear clear, on this telling, that something about this method would be amiss. Nevertheless, China’s influential Ministry of State Security still considers it worthwhile to use headhunters to try it – leading the domestic spy agency to issue multiple warnings about their activity online.
Massive Approaches on Professional Networks
Last year, MI5 chief the agency's director stated Chinese agents were approaching Britons on LinkedIn on an unprecedented scale, at a frequency of ten thousand over the preceding 30-month period, seeking political, commercial, military and scientific classified information. However a new initiative aimed at politicians and Westminster has prompted the intelligence service to take further action.
A spying warning was distributed on Tuesday via the administrative teams of the Commons speaker and his House of Lords counterpart: a single slide after the persistent attempts of Shirly Shen and Amanda Qiu to contact MPs, lords, their staffers, economists, thinktanks – anybody who might become a source.
Security Strategy and Legislative Changes
In the curious style of British intelligence, there was no official release of the security advice from MI5 or the interior ministry. But the agency was aware its advisory document would leak once it was emailed out to Westminster. Republishing it in the media assists the general population more easily recognize interactions with a fraudulent intent.
This warning has the effect of flushing out more information from in and around parliament, although that is not MI5’s main objective. The service wants public figures to recognize that just because interactions on professional networks are less overtly risky as on other social platforms, it does not mean they are without risk.
Nor is domestic spy agency understood to have been reacting to any specific incident in the legislature, though the recent actions occur after the embarrassing failure of the legal case of a former parliamentary aide an individual and his associate Christopher Berry on a legal detail in recent months.
Both individuals had been accused of working for China – a charge they rejected – but failure to successfully conclude a trial under the now repealed previous legislation led to concerns that the UK's political system had been insufficiently defended.
Updated Legislation and China's Strategic Interests
Legislation has since been updated, and the MI5 slide includes a reminder of its successor: “Individuals involved in espionage activity risk significant criminal penalties under the National Security Act.” It is a criminal offense if a person participates in conduct that is or is likely to “materially assist a overseas spy agency”.
An obvious question, however, is what Beijing has to achieve. A politician who is not a government minister will have limited access of classified material, and an contact of theirs less so. But the Chinese government is particularly focused in the legislative body: for a time, in recent years, the UK’s China policy on matters such as the telecom firm or the Uyghur repression or genocide was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Variations and Persistent Cyber Threats
To a degree there are cultural differences too. Autocratic regimes like China’s export information gathering methods and the size of its intelligence apparatus is vast, employing three hundred thousand people. Chris Inglis, a American cybersecurity head under president Joe Biden, said it was occasionally assessed that “the Chinese have more English speakers engaged in this than we [western intelligence] have English speakers”.
The Chinese government is willing to develop contacts over the long term and sometimes even the intelligence services have struggled to distinguish between genuine connections and espionage. “China has a minimal requirement for what information is considered to be of value,” the minister responsible a government official informed MPs on Wednesday, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may result in someone quickly marginal becomes significant.
An alternative perspective to think about the relentless efforts at secret information gathering is in the wider context of the geopolitical contest between Beijing and the west at a level under the point of direct conflict. China has stepped up its hacking efforts, with the one campaign penetration of communications systems in numerous nations, and the Volt Typhoon breach of countless internet devices.
Beijing is engaged in relentless efforts to identify covert sources on UK politics via digital means because it seeks to be provocative, to display power and because it can.
