A surprising contact on LinkedIn. An offer of work from a recruiter, probably a female agent, operating from China. The opportunity to make perhaps £20,000 on the side writing a handful of geopolitical reports for a firm from China containing “non-public” or privileged insights. Payment in cryptocurrency or physical money preferred.
It might appear clear, in this scenario, that something about this method would be suspicious. However, Beijing's powerful intelligence agency still considers it valuable to use recruitment consultants to try it – leading MI5 to issue multiple warnings about their activity online.
Large-Scale Approaches on Social Media
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum stated Chinese agents were contacting UK citizens on LinkedIn on an extraordinary scale, at a frequency of 10,000 over the preceding two and a half years, attempting to obtain political, commercial, military and technological classified information. However a fresh campaign targeting elected officials and parliament has led the spy agency to take further action.
An espionage warning was issued on this week via the administrative teams of Lindsay Hoyle and his Lords counterpart: a brief presentation after the persistent attempts of Shirly Shen and other operatives to contact MPs, peers, their assistants, economic experts, thinktanks – anyone who might become a source.
Security Approach and Legal Updates
In the typical style of UK security services, there was no publication of the security advice from the agency or the Home Office. Yet the service knew its briefing note would become public once it was emailed out to parliament. Republishing it in the press assists the wider public better identify interactions with a fraudulent intent.
The alert has the effect of flushing out more information from in and around parliament, although that is not MI5’s main objective. The service wants people in public life to recognize that simply because exchanges on professional networks are less overtly risky as on other social platforms, it doesn't imply they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency understood to have been responding to any specific incident in parliament, though the recent actions does come after the awkward failure of the legal case of a ex-assistant an individual and his associate Christopher Berry on a technicality earlier in the autumn.
Both individuals had been accused of spying for China – a charge they rejected – but inability to successfully conclude a prosecution under the since replaced Official Secrets Act led to concerns that British democracy had been insufficiently defended.
Updated Legislation and China's Long-Term Goals
Legislation has now been changed, and the security briefing includes a note of its replacement: “Those engaging in espionage activity face significant legal consequences under the National Security Act.” It is a crime if a person engages in conduct that is or is likely to “significantly help a foreign intelligence service”.
An obvious inquiry, though, is what China has to gain. A politician who is not a government minister will have limited knowledge of classified material, and an associate of theirs less so. But 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 human rights situation or alleged atrocities was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Differences and Persistent Cyber Risks
In part there are distinct approaches as well. Autocratic regimes like China’s export intelligence collection techniques and the size of its spy network is vast, employing three hundred thousand people. A former US official, a American cybersecurity head under president Joe Biden, commented it was sometimes estimated that “China have more English speakers involved in this than we [western intelligence] have English speakers”.
The Chinese government is willing to cultivate people over the long term and at times even the agencies have found it difficult to differentiate genuine connections and espionage. “China has a minimal requirement for what information is deemed to be useful,” the minister responsible a government official informed MPs on Wednesday, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may result in someone rapidly peripheral turning significant.
An alternative perspective to think about the relentless efforts at secret intelligence collection is in the broader framework of the international competition between China and the west at a threshold under the level of direct conflict. The nation has increased its hacking efforts, with the Salt Typhoon infiltration of phone and data networks in 80 countries, and the another operation compromise of countless connected equipment.
Chinese authorities is engaged in persistent efforts to find covert sources on British democracy via digital means because it seeks to be challenging, to display power and because it can.
