An unexpected contact on the professional network. An offer of work from a recruiter, probably a young woman, based in China. The chance to earn perhaps £20,000 part-time preparing a handful of political analyses for a Chinese company containing confidential or privileged insights. Compensation in cryptocurrency or physical money preferred.
It may seem obvious, on this telling, that an element about this approach would be suspicious. However, China’s powerful intelligence agency continues to view it valuable to deploy headhunters to attempt this – leading the domestic spy agency to issue multiple warnings about their activity online.
Massive Approaches on Professional Networks
In 2023, the head of MI5 Ken McCallum stated operatives from China were approaching UK citizens on the platform on an unprecedented scale, at a frequency of ten thousand over the preceding 30-month period, seeking governmental, commercial, defense and technological classified information. But a new initiative targeting elected officials and parliament has led the intelligence service to take further action.
An espionage alert was distributed on Tuesday via the offices of Lindsay Hoyle and his Lords counterpart: a brief presentation after the repeated efforts of Shirly Shen and Amanda Qiu to reach out to MPs, lords, their staffers, economic experts, thinktanks – anyone who might provide information.
Intelligence Approach and Legal Changes
In the curious style of British intelligence, there was no publication of the protective guidance from MI5 or the interior ministry. But the agency was aware its briefing note would become public once it was emailed out to parliament. Republishing it in the media helps the wider public better identify communications with a deceptive purpose.
The alert has the impact of uncovering more information from in and around Westminster, although that is not the agency's primary purpose. The agency wants public figures to recognize that just because exchanges on LinkedIn are less overtly risky as on other social platforms, it does not mean they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency understood to have been responding to any specific incident in the legislature, although the burst of activity does come after the awkward failure of the legal case of a former parliamentary aide an individual and his associate Christopher Berry on a technicality in recent months.
The two had been charged of working for China – a charge they denied – but failure to complete a prosecution under the since replaced previous legislation resulted in warnings that the UK's political system had been left unprotected.
Updated Legislation and Beijing's Long-Term Interests
Legislation has now been changed, and the MI5 slide contains a note of its successor: “Individuals involved in espionage activity face significant criminal penalties under the National Security Act.” It is a crime if a person engages in conduct that could potentially “materially assist a overseas spy agency”.
An obvious question, though, is what Beijing has to achieve. A politician who is outside ministerial roles will have limited knowledge of sensitive information, and an associate of theirs even less. Yet the Chinese government is particularly focused in the legislative body: for a time, in 2020 and 2021, the UK’s approach to China on issues such as the telecom firm or the Uyghur repression or genocide was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Differences and Ongoing Digital Threats
To a degree there are cultural differences too. Autocratic regimes like China’s export information gathering methods and the scale of its spy network is vast, employing three hundred thousand individuals. A former US official, a US national cyber director under president Joe Biden, said it was occasionally assessed that “China have greater linguistic capacity engaged in this than we [western intelligence] have personnel with language skills”.
Beijing is prepared to develop contacts over the long term and at times even the agencies have struggled to differentiate legitimate relationships and spying. “China has a minimal requirement for what information is considered to be of value,” security minister a government official told parliamentarians on this week, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may result in an individual rapidly peripheral becomes important.
An alternative perspective to think about the relentless activities at covert information gathering is in the broader framework of the geopolitical contest between China and the west at a threshold below the point of direct conflict. The nation has stepped up its cyber operations, with the Salt Typhoon penetration of communications systems in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon breach of millions connected equipment.
Beijing is engaged in persistent efforts to find secret informants on British democracy via digital means because it seeks to be provocative, to display power and because it has the capability.
