A surprising connection on LinkedIn. An offer of work from a recruiter, probably a female agent, operating from the Asian nation. The chance to earn around £20,000 on the side preparing a small number of geopolitical analyses for a Chinese company peppered with “non-public” or “insider” insights. Compensation in digital currency or physical money preferred.
It may seem clear, on this telling, that an element about this approach would be amiss. However, China’s powerful intelligence agency still considers it valuable to use recruitment consultants to try it – prompting the domestic spy agency to warn repeatedly about their activity online.
Large-Scale Approaches on Professional Networks
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said Chinese agents were contacting Britons on the platform on an extraordinary level, at a rate of 10,000 over the previous two and a half years, seeking political, industrial, defense and technological classified information. But a new initiative targeting politicians and Westminster has prompted the intelligence service to act again.
An espionage warning was issued on Tuesday via the offices of Lindsay Hoyle and his House of Lords counterpart: a single slide after the repeated efforts of certain individuals and Amanda Qiu to contact MPs, peers, their staffers, economic experts, research organizations – anyone who might become a source.
Intelligence Approach and Legal Changes
In the curious style of British intelligence, there was no publication of the protective guidance from the agency or the Home Office. But the agency was aware its advisory document would become public once it was emailed out to parliament. Sharing it in the media helps the wider public more easily recognize communications with a deceptive purpose.
This warning has the effect of flushing out more information from in and around parliament, although that is not the agency's main objective. The agency wants people in public life to recognize that just because exchanges on professional networks are less overtly risky as on X or Facebook, it does not mean they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency understood to have been reacting to any specific incident in the legislature, although the recent actions occur after the embarrassing failure of the prosecution of a former parliamentary aide Christopher Cash and his associate Christopher Berry on a legal detail in recent months.
Both individuals had been accused of spying for the foreign power – a allegation they denied – but inability to complete a trial under the since replaced previous legislation resulted in concerns that the UK's political system had been insufficiently defended.
Revised Laws and China's Long-Term Goals
The law has since been updated, and the security briefing contains a reminder of its successor: “Those engaging in spying operations risk significant criminal penalties under the National Security Act.” It is a criminal offense if somebody participates in conduct that could potentially “materially assist a overseas spy agency”.
A natural inquiry, though, is what China has to gain. A politician who is not a government minister will have restricted access of classified material, and an associate of theirs even less. But Beijing is particularly focused in the legislative body: for a time, in recent years, the UK’s China policy on issues such as Huawei or the Uyghur repression or genocide was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Differences and Persistent Cyber Risks
In part there are cultural differences as well. Authoritarian governments like China’s utilize intelligence collection methods and the scale of its spy network is enormous, engaging three hundred thousand individuals. A former US official, a US national cyber director under the US administration, commented it was sometimes estimated that “the Chinese have more English speakers involved in this than we [western intelligence] have personnel with language skills”.
Beijing is willing to develop people over the extended period and at times even the intelligence services have struggled to distinguish between legitimate relationships and spying. “China has a minimal requirement for which details is considered to be useful,” the minister responsible Dan Jarvis told parliamentarians on this week, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may result in an individual quickly marginal becomes important.
Another way to think about the continuous activities at covert intelligence collection is in the wider context of the international competition between China and the west at a threshold below the point of outright war. China has stepped up its hacking efforts, with the one campaign penetration of communications systems in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon compromise of countless connected equipment.
Beijing is involved in persistent efforts to find secret informants on UK politics via digital means because it seeks to be provocative, to demonstrate power and because it can.
