An unexpected connection on LinkedIn. A proposal of work from a headhunter, most likely a young woman, operating from China. The opportunity to earn around £20,000 on the side preparing a handful of geopolitical reports for a firm from China peppered with confidential or “insider” insights. Compensation in cryptocurrency or physical money preferred.
It may seem clear, on this telling, that an element about this method would be suspicious. However, Beijing's powerful intelligence agency still considers it worthwhile to deploy headhunters to try it – prompting the domestic spy agency to warn repeatedly about their operations online.
Large-Scale Approaches on Professional Networks
Last year, the head of MI5 Ken McCallum said Chinese agents were approaching Britons on the platform on an unprecedented level, at a rate of 10,000 over the previous 30-month period, seeking political, commercial, defense and technological secrets. But a fresh initiative targeting politicians and Westminster has prompted the intelligence service to take further action.
A spying alert was distributed on Tuesday via the offices of the Commons speaker and his Lords equivalent: a brief presentation after the persistent attempts of Shirly Shen and other operatives to contact MPs, peers, their assistants, economic experts, thinktanks – anybody who might become a source.
Intelligence Approach and Legal Changes
In the typical style of UK security services, there was no official release of the protective guidance from the agency or the Home Office. Yet the agency knew its advisory document would become public once it was emailed out to Westminster. Sharing it in the media helps the wider public better identify communications with a fraudulent intent.
The alert has the effect of flushing out more information from within Westminster, although that is not MI5’s primary purpose. The service wants public figures to understand that simply because interactions on professional networks are not as toxic as on other social platforms, it does not mean they are completely safe.
Nor is internal security service believed to have been reacting to any specific incident in the legislature, though the burst of activity occur after the embarrassing failure of the legal case of a former parliamentary aide Christopher Cash and his associate another person on a legal detail in recent months.
The two had been charged of working for China – a allegation they denied – but inability to complete a trial under the now repealed Official Secrets Act resulted in concerns that British democracy had been insufficiently defended.
Updated Legislation and China's Long-Term Goals
Legislation has since been updated, and the MI5 slide contains a note of its replacement: “Those engaging in espionage activity risk substantial legal consequences under the new security law.” It is a crime if somebody participates in conduct that could potentially “significantly help a overseas spy agency”.
A natural inquiry, however, is what China has to achieve. An elected representative who is outside ministerial roles will have restricted knowledge of sensitive information, and an contact of theirs less so. Yet Beijing is also interested in parliament: for a time, in recent years, the UK’s China policy on issues such as the telecom firm or the human rights situation or alleged atrocities was being driven by parliamentarians.
Methodological Differences and Persistent Digital Risks
In part there are cultural differences too. Autocratic regimes like China’s export information gathering methods and the size of its spy network is vast, 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 more English speakers engaged in this than we [western intelligence] have English speakers”.
Beijing is willing to cultivate people over the extended period and sometimes even the intelligence services have struggled to distinguish between genuine connections and spying. “Beijing has a low threshold for what information is deemed to be useful,” the minister responsible Dan Jarvis told MPs on Wednesday, but a rapid shift in the government situation may result in an individual quickly peripheral becomes significant.
An alternative perspective to consider the continuous efforts at secret intelligence collection is in the broader framework of the geopolitical contest between China and the Western nations at a level below the point of direct conflict. China has increased its cyber operations, 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 involved in persistent efforts to identify covert sources on British democracy online because it wants to be provocative, to display influence and because it has the capability.
