An unexpected contact on LinkedIn. An offer of employment from a recruiter, most likely a female agent, based in the Asian nation. The chance to earn around £20,000 part-time writing a small number of geopolitical reports for a Chinese company containing “non-public” or “insider” information. Payment in cryptocurrency or physical money favored.
It might appear clear, in this scenario, that an element about this approach would be amiss. However, Beijing's powerful intelligence agency still considers it worthwhile to deploy headhunters to attempt this – leading the domestic spy agency to warn repeatedly about their operations on the internet.
Massive Contact Attempts on Professional Networks
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said Chinese agents were approaching UK citizens on LinkedIn on an unprecedented level, at a rate of 10,000 over the preceding 30-month period, attempting to obtain political, commercial, military and scientific classified information. But a new initiative aimed at elected officials and parliament has prompted the spy agency to take further action.
An espionage alert was distributed on Tuesday via the offices of the Commons speaker and his House of Lords equivalent: a single slide after the repeated efforts of Shirly Shen and other operatives to reach out to Members of Parliament, lords, their staffers, economic experts, research organizations – anybody who might become a source.
Intelligence Strategy and Legal Changes
In the typical manner of British intelligence, there was no publication of the protective guidance from MI5 or the interior ministry. But the service was aware its briefing note would become public once it was emailed out to Westminster. Sharing it in the press helps the wider public better identify communications with a deceptive intent.
The alert has the effect of uncovering additional details from within parliament, though that is not MI5’s main objective. The agency aims for people in public life to recognize that simply because interactions on LinkedIn 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 responding to any specific incident in the legislature, though the recent actions does come after the embarrassing collapse of the legal case of a former parliamentary aide Christopher Cash and his associate another person on a technicality in recent months.
Both individuals had been accused of spying for China – a allegation they denied – but failure to complete a prosecution under the since replaced Official Secrets Act led to concerns that British democracy had been left unprotected.
Revised Legislation and Beijing's Long-Term Interests
Legislation has now been changed, and the MI5 slide includes a reminder of its replacement: “Those engaging in espionage activity risk substantial legal consequences under the National Security Act.” This constitutes a criminal offense if somebody engages in behavior that could potentially “significantly help a foreign intelligence service”.
A natural inquiry, though, is what Beijing has to gain. A politician who is outside ministerial roles will have restricted knowledge of classified material, and an contact of theirs even less. But the Chinese government is also interested in parliament: for a period, in recent years, the Britain's approach to China on matters such as Huawei or the Uyghur repression or genocide was being driven by MPs.
Methodological Differences and Ongoing Cyber Risks
In part there are cultural differences as well. Authoritarian governments like Beijing's export intelligence collection methods and the size of its intelligence apparatus is vast, employing 300,000 individuals. A former US official, a US national cyber director under the US administration, said it was occasionally assessed that “the Chinese have more English speakers involved in this than we [western intelligence] have personnel with language skills”.
The Chinese government is prepared to develop people over the extended period and sometimes even the agencies have struggled to distinguish between legitimate relationships and spying. “China has a low threshold for which details is considered to be of value,” security minister Dan Jarvis informed MPs on this week, but a rapid shift in the political cycle may mean someone quickly peripheral becomes significant.
Another way to think about the continuous efforts at covert intelligence collection is in the broader framework of the international competition between Beijing and the west at a level under the point of outright war. China has increased its hacking efforts, with the one campaign penetration of communications systems in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon compromise of millions internet devices.
Beijing is engaged in persistent attempts to identify secret informants on UK politics online because it wants to be provocative, to display power and because it has the capability.
