A surprising connection on LinkedIn. A proposal of work from a recruiter, probably a female agent, based in China. The chance to make around £20,000 part-time preparing a small number of political reports for a Chinese company containing confidential or privileged information. Payment in cryptocurrency or cash preferred.
It may seem clear, in this scenario, that something about this approach would be amiss. However, China’s powerful intelligence agency continues to view it worthwhile to use headhunters to attempt this – prompting MI5 to warn repeatedly about their activity on the internet.
Large-Scale Approaches on Social Media
Last year, MI5 chief the agency's director said operatives from China were approaching UK citizens on LinkedIn on an unprecedented level, at a frequency of 10,000 over the preceding 30-month period, attempting to obtain governmental, commercial, military and scientific secrets. But a new initiative aimed at politicians and parliament has prompted the spy agency to take further action.
A spying alert was distributed on this week via the administrative teams of Lindsay Hoyle and his Lords equivalent: a brief presentation after the persistent attempts of certain individuals and Amanda Qiu to contact Members of Parliament, peers, their assistants, economists, thinktanks – anybody who might become a source.
Intelligence Strategy and Legislative Changes
In the typical style of British intelligence, there was no official release of the security advice from the agency or the Home Office. Yet the service was aware its advisory document would become public once it was sent electronically out to parliament. Sharing it in the media assists the general population more easily recognize communications with a deceptive purpose.
This warning has the impact of uncovering additional details from in and around Westminster, though that is not the agency's main objective. The service aims for people in public life to recognize that simply 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 reacting to any specific incident in the legislature, although the burst of activity occur 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 the foreign power – a charge they rejected – but failure to complete a prosecution under the since replaced Official Secrets Act led to warnings that British democracy had been insufficiently defended.
Revised Legislation and Beijing's Strategic Goals
The law has since been updated, and the MI5 slide includes a note of its replacement: “Individuals involved in spying operations face significant criminal penalties under the new security law.” It is a crime if a person participates in conduct that is or is likely to “materially assist a overseas spy agency”.
A natural inquiry, though, is what China has to gain. A politician who is not a government minister will have limited access of sensitive information, and an contact of theirs less so. Yet Beijing is particularly focused in parliament: for a period, in 2020 and 2021, the UK’s China policy on matters such as the telecom firm or the Uyghur repression or alleged atrocities was being driven by parliamentarians.
Cultural Variations and Ongoing Digital Risks
In part there are distinct approaches too. Authoritarian governments like Beijing's export information gathering methods and the size of its intelligence apparatus is enormous, employing three hundred thousand individuals. A former US official, a American cybersecurity head under president Joe Biden, said it was sometimes estimated that “China have greater linguistic capacity involved 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 found it difficult to differentiate genuine connections and spying. “Beijing has a minimal requirement for what information is deemed to be useful,” security minister a government official informed parliamentarians on Wednesday, but a sudden turn in the government situation may result in an individual rapidly peripheral turning important.
An alternative perspective to think about the continuous efforts at secret intelligence collection is in the wider context of the geopolitical contest between China and the west at a threshold under the point of outright war. China has increased its cyber operations, with the one campaign infiltration of communications systems in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon breach of millions internet devices.
Chinese authorities is involved in relentless attempts to find covert sources on UK politics online because it seeks to be challenging, to demonstrate power and because it can.
