An unexpected contact on the professional network. An offer of work from a recruiter, probably a female agent, based in China. The chance to earn around £20,000 part-time preparing a small number of political reports for a Chinese company peppered with “non-public” or privileged information. Compensation in digital currency or physical money favored.
It may seem obvious, on this telling, that an element about this method would be amiss. Nevertheless, China’s powerful intelligence agency still considers it valuable to deploy headhunters to try it – leading the domestic spy agency to issue multiple warnings about their operations online.
Large-Scale Contact Attempts on Social Media
Last year, the head of MI5 Ken McCallum stated Chinese agents were contacting UK citizens on the platform on an extraordinary scale, at a frequency of 10,000 over the preceding 30-month period, seeking political, commercial, military and scientific classified information. However a fresh campaign targeting politicians and Westminster has prompted the spy agency to act again.
A spying alert was distributed on this week via the administrative teams of the Commons speaker and his Lords counterpart: a single slide after the persistent attempts of certain individuals and Amanda Qiu to reach out to MPs, peers, their staffers, economists, research organizations – anyone who might provide information.
Intelligence Strategy and Legislative Updates
In the curious manner of British intelligence, there was no official release of the protective guidance from the agency or the Home Office. But the agency knew its advisory document would become public once it was sent electronically out to parliament. Sharing it in the press helps the wider public better identify communications with a fraudulent intent.
This warning has the impact of uncovering more information from within parliament, though that is not MI5’s primary purpose. The service aims for people in public life to understand that simply because exchanges 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 the legislature, although the recent actions does come after the awkward failure of the prosecution of a former parliamentary aide Christopher Cash and his friend Christopher Berry on a legal detail in recent months.
Both individuals had been charged of spying for China – a charge they denied – but failure to successfully conclude a trial under the now repealed Official Secrets Act led to concerns that British democracy had been left unprotected.
Updated Legislation and Beijing's Long-Term Interests
Legislation has now been changed, and the MI5 slide includes a note of its successor: “Those engaging in spying operations face substantial criminal penalties under the National Security Act.” This constitutes a crime if a person engages in conduct that could potentially “significantly help a foreign intelligence service”.
A natural question, however, is what China has to achieve. A politician who is not a government minister will have limited access of classified material, and an associate of theirs even less. Yet the Chinese government is particularly focused in the legislative body: for a time, in recent years, the UK’s approach to China on issues such as Huawei or the human rights situation or genocide was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Differences and Persistent Cyber Risks
To a degree there are cultural differences too. Authoritarian governments like Beijing's export information gathering methods and the scale of its spy network is vast, engaging 300,000 people. A former US official, a US national cyber director under the US administration, said it was sometimes estimated that “China have more English speakers engaged in this than Western agencies have English speakers”.
The Chinese government is willing to develop people over the long term and sometimes even the agencies have struggled to differentiate legitimate relationships and spying. “China has a minimal requirement for which details is considered to be useful,” the minister responsible a government official informed parliamentarians on this week, but a rapid shift in the political cycle may mean someone quickly marginal becomes important.
Another way to consider the relentless efforts at secret intelligence collection is in the broader framework of the international competition between Beijing 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 80 countries, and the another operation compromise of millions internet devices.
Chinese authorities is involved in relentless attempts to find secret informants on UK politics online because it wants to be provocative, to display influence and because it can.
