A surprising contact on the professional network. A proposal of work from a headhunter, most likely a female agent, based in China. The opportunity to earn around £20,000 on the side writing a handful of geopolitical reports for a Chinese company containing “non-public” or privileged insights. Payment in cryptocurrency or cash preferred.
It may seem obvious, in this scenario, that something about this approach would be amiss. However, China’s influential Ministry of State Security still considers it valuable to use recruitment consultants to attempt this – leading the domestic spy agency to warn repeatedly about their operations online.
Large-Scale Contact Attempts on Professional Networks
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum stated operatives from China were approaching UK citizens on the platform on an extraordinary level, at a frequency of 10,000 over the preceding 30-month period, attempting to obtain governmental, industrial, defense and scientific secrets. But a new campaign targeting elected officials and parliament has led the intelligence service to act again.
An espionage alert was issued on this week via the offices of the Commons speaker and his Lords equivalent: a single slide after the persistent attempts of Shirly Shen and Amanda Qiu to reach out to MPs, peers, their staffers, economic experts, research organizations – anyone who might provide information.
Security Approach and Legislative Updates
In the curious manner of UK security services, there was no official release of the protective guidance from MI5 or the interior ministry. Yet the service was aware its advisory document would leak once it was sent electronically out to Westminster. Sharing it in the press assists the general population more easily recognize communications with a fraudulent purpose.
This warning has the effect of uncovering more information from in and around parliament, though that is not the agency's primary purpose. The agency 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 does not mean they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency believed to have been reacting to any specific incident in the legislature, though the burst of activity occur after the awkward collapse of the prosecution of a former parliamentary aide Christopher Cash and his associate another person on a legal detail earlier in the autumn.
Both individuals had been charged of spying for the foreign power – a charge they rejected – but failure to complete a trial under the now repealed previous legislation led to warnings that the UK's political system had been left unprotected.
Revised Laws and Beijing's Long-Term Interests
The law has since been updated, and the security briefing contains a reminder of its successor: “Those engaging in espionage activity face substantial criminal penalties under the National Security Act.” This constitutes a criminal offense if somebody participates in conduct that is or is likely to “significantly help a overseas spy agency”.
A natural inquiry, though, is what Beijing has to gain. A politician who is outside ministerial roles will have limited knowledge of sensitive information, and an associate of theirs less so. But Beijing is also interested in parliament: for a period, in recent years, the Britain's China policy on issues such as the telecom firm or the Uyghur repression or genocide was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Variations and Ongoing Cyber Threats
To a degree there are distinct approaches too. Authoritarian governments like China’s export intelligence collection methods and the size of its spy network is enormous, employing three hundred thousand individuals. Chris Inglis, a US national cyber director under president Joe Biden, said it was sometimes estimated that “the Chinese have more English speakers engaged in this than we [western intelligence] have personnel with language skills”.
Beijing is willing to develop people over the long term and sometimes even the intelligence services have found it difficult to differentiate legitimate relationships and spying. “Beijing has a minimal requirement for what information is deemed to be of value,” security minister Dan Jarvis informed MPs on this week, but a sudden turn in the government situation may result in someone rapidly marginal becomes important.
Another way to think about the continuous efforts at covert information gathering is in the wider context of the international competition between Beijing and the west at a threshold below the level of direct conflict. China has stepped up its hacking efforts, with the Salt Typhoon penetration of communications systems in numerous nations, and the another operation breach of countless connected equipment.
Beijing is involved in relentless efforts to identify covert sources on UK politics online because it wants to be provocative, to demonstrate power and because it has the capability.
