An unexpected contact on LinkedIn. An offer of work from a recruiter, probably a young woman, based in the Asian nation. The opportunity to earn perhaps £20,000 part-time preparing a small number of geopolitical analyses for a firm from China peppered with confidential or “insider” insights. Payment in digital currency or physical money preferred.
It might appear clear, in this scenario, that something about this method would be amiss. Nevertheless, China’s influential Ministry of State Security still considers it valuable to deploy recruitment consultants to attempt this – prompting the domestic spy agency to warn repeatedly about their activity on the internet.
Large-Scale Contact Attempts on Professional Networks
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said operatives from China were contacting Britons on the platform on an unprecedented level, at a frequency of 10,000 over the previous 30-month period, seeking governmental, industrial, defense and scientific classified information. But a new campaign aimed at elected officials and Westminster has prompted the intelligence service to take further action.
An espionage warning was issued on Tuesday via the offices of Lindsay Hoyle and his Lords equivalent: a single slide after the repeated efforts of Shirly Shen and Amanda Qiu to contact Members of Parliament, peers, their assistants, economic experts, thinktanks – anyone who might become a source.
Intelligence Approach and Legal Changes
In the curious manner of British intelligence, there was no publication of the security advice from the agency or the Home Office. Yet the service was aware its advisory document would leak once it was sent electronically out to parliament. Republishing it in the press helps the general population more easily recognize interactions with a deceptive purpose.
The alert has the impact of flushing out more information from in and around parliament, although that is not the agency's primary purpose. The service wants people in public life to understand that simply because interactions on professional networks are less overtly risky as on other social platforms, it doesn't imply they are without risk.
Nor is internal security service believed to have been reacting to a particular event in parliament, although the burst of activity does come after the embarrassing failure of the legal case of a ex-assistant Christopher Cash and his friend Christopher Berry on a technicality in recent months.
The two had been accused of working for the foreign power – a charge they denied – but inability to successfully conclude a trial under the now repealed previous legislation resulted in warnings that British democracy had been insufficiently defended.
Updated Laws and China's Long-Term Interests
Legislation has now been changed, and the security briefing includes a note of its replacement: “Those engaging in spying operations face significant legal consequences under the National Security Act.” It is a criminal offense if a person engages in behavior that could potentially “significantly help a overseas spy agency”.
An obvious inquiry, however, is what Beijing has to achieve. An elected representative who is not a government minister will have restricted knowledge of sensitive information, and an contact of theirs less so. But Beijing is also interested in parliament: for a time, in recent years, the UK’s China policy on matters such as Huawei or the Uyghur repression or genocide was being influenced by MPs.
Methodological Variations and Ongoing Cyber Threats
In part there are distinct approaches too. Authoritarian governments like China’s export information gathering methods and the scale of its intelligence apparatus is vast, engaging 300,000 individuals. A former US official, a US national cyber director under president Joe Biden, commented it was occasionally assessed that “China have more English speakers engaged 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 found it difficult to distinguish between legitimate relationships and espionage. “China has a minimal requirement for what information is deemed to be useful,” security minister Dan Jarvis told MPs on this week, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may result in someone rapidly marginal becomes significant.
Another way to think about the relentless activities at covert information gathering is in the wider context of the geopolitical contest between China and the west at a level under the level of outright war. China has increased its cyber operations, with the one campaign infiltration of communications systems in numerous nations, and the another operation compromise of countless connected equipment.
Chinese authorities is involved in relentless attempts to identify covert sources on British democracy online because it seeks to be provocative, to display power and because it can.
