A surprising contact on LinkedIn. A proposal of employment from a headhunter, probably a young woman, operating from the Asian nation. The chance to earn perhaps £20,000 on the side preparing a handful of political reports for a firm from China peppered with confidential or “insider” information. Compensation in cryptocurrency or physical money favored.
It may seem obvious, on this telling, that something about this method would be suspicious. However, China’s powerful Ministry of State Security continues to view it worthwhile to use recruitment consultants to attempt this – leading the domestic spy agency to warn repeatedly about their activity online.
Massive Approaches on Professional Networks
Last year, the head of MI5 Ken McCallum said Chinese agents were approaching UK citizens on LinkedIn on an extraordinary level, at a frequency of 10,000 over the preceding two and a half years, attempting to obtain political, commercial, military and scientific classified information. However a fresh initiative targeting elected officials and parliament has prompted the intelligence service to act again.
An espionage alert was distributed on this week via the offices of the Commons speaker and his House of Lords equivalent: a brief presentation after the repeated efforts of certain individuals and Amanda Qiu to reach out to MPs, lords, their staffers, economists, research organizations – anyone who might provide information.
Intelligence Strategy and Legal Changes
In the typical style of UK security services, there was no publication of the protective guidance from MI5 or the Home Office. But the agency was aware its briefing note would leak once it was emailed out to Westminster. Sharing it in the media helps the wider public more easily recognize interactions with a fraudulent intent.
The alert has the effect of flushing out more information from in and around parliament, though that is not the agency's primary purpose. The agency aims for public figures to recognize that simply because interactions on LinkedIn are less overtly risky as on other social platforms, it does not mean they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency believed to have been reacting to any specific incident in parliament, although the recent actions does come after the awkward failure of the legal case of a ex-assistant Christopher Cash and his friend another person on a technicality earlier in the autumn.
The two had been accused of spying for China – a charge they denied – but inability to successfully conclude a prosecution under the now repealed Official Secrets Act resulted in concerns that the UK's political system had been left unprotected.
Updated Laws and Beijing's Long-Term Goals
Legislation has since been updated, and the MI5 slide includes a note of its successor: “Those engaging in espionage activity face substantial legal consequences under the new security law.” It is a crime if somebody engages in conduct that is or is likely to “significantly help a overseas spy agency”.
A natural question, though, is what Beijing has to achieve. An elected representative who is outside ministerial roles will have restricted knowledge of sensitive information, and an associate of theirs less so. Yet Beijing is particularly focused in the legislative body: for a period, in 2020 and 2021, the UK’s China policy on matters such as Huawei or the Uyghur repression or alleged atrocities was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Variations and Persistent Cyber Risks
To a degree there are distinct approaches too. Autocratic regimes like Beijing's export information gathering methods and the size of its spy network is enormous, employing 300,000 people. A former US official, a American cybersecurity head under the US administration, said it was sometimes estimated that “the Chinese have greater linguistic capacity involved in this than we [western intelligence] have personnel with language skills”.
The Chinese government is willing to cultivate people over the extended period and at times even the intelligence services have struggled to differentiate genuine connections and spying. “Beijing has a low threshold for what information is deemed to be of value,” the minister responsible Dan Jarvis told parliamentarians on this week, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may mean someone quickly marginal becomes significant.
An alternative perspective to consider the continuous efforts at secret information gathering is in the broader framework of the geopolitical contest between China and the west at a level under the point of direct conflict. The nation has stepped up its hacking efforts, with the Salt Typhoon infiltration of phone and data networks in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon compromise of millions internet devices.
Chinese authorities is engaged in persistent efforts to identify covert sources on British democracy via digital means because it wants to be challenging, to demonstrate influence and because it has the capability.
