A surprising connection on the professional network. An offer of work from a recruiter, probably a female agent, based in China. The opportunity to make perhaps £20,000 on the side preparing a small number of geopolitical reports for a firm from China containing confidential or “insider” insights. Payment in cryptocurrency or cash preferred.
It may seem obvious, in this scenario, that an element about this approach would be amiss. However, Beijing's influential intelligence agency continues to view it valuable to use recruitment consultants to attempt this – prompting MI5 to issue multiple warnings about their operations online.
Massive Contact Attempts on Professional Networks
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum stated Chinese agents were approaching Britons on the platform on an extraordinary level, at a frequency of ten thousand over the preceding two and a half years, attempting to obtain governmental, industrial, defense and technological classified information. But a fresh campaign aimed at elected officials and Westminster has led the spy agency to take further action.
A spying warning was distributed on this week via the offices of the Commons speaker and his Lords equivalent: a single slide after the repeated efforts of certain individuals and Amanda Qiu to reach out to Members of Parliament, peers, their staffers, economic experts, research organizations – anybody who might provide information.
Intelligence Strategy and Legal Updates
In the curious manner of UK security services, there was no publication of the security advice from MI5 or the Home Office. But the agency knew its briefing note would become public once it was sent electronically out to parliament. Sharing it in the media assists the wider public more easily recognize communications with a deceptive purpose.
The alert has the effect of flushing out additional details from in and around parliament, though that is not MI5’s main objective. The service wants people in public life to recognize that just because exchanges on professional networks are not as toxic as on other social platforms, it does not mean they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency understood to have been reacting to a particular event in the legislature, although the burst of activity does come after the awkward failure of the legal case of a ex-assistant Christopher Cash and his friend Christopher Berry on a technicality earlier in the autumn.
The two had been charged of spying for China – a allegation they denied – but inability to complete a trial under the since replaced Official Secrets Act led to warnings that British democracy had been left unprotected.
Revised Laws and Beijing's Long-Term Goals
The law has since been updated, and the security briefing includes a note of its successor: “Those engaging in espionage activity face significant criminal penalties under the new security law.” It is a criminal offense if somebody participates in conduct that is or is likely to “significantly help a foreign intelligence service”.
An obvious inquiry, though, is what China has to gain. An elected representative who is outside ministerial roles will have restricted access of sensitive information, and an contact of theirs less so. But the Chinese government is particularly focused in the legislative body: for a time, in recent years, the Britain's approach to China on matters such as Huawei or the human rights situation or genocide was being influenced by parliamentarians.
Cultural Differences and Ongoing Digital Threats
In part there are cultural differences as well. Authoritarian governments like China’s export intelligence collection methods and the scale of its intelligence apparatus is enormous, engaging three hundred thousand people. A former US official, a American cybersecurity head under the US administration, said it was occasionally assessed that “the Chinese have more English speakers engaged in this than we [western intelligence] have English speakers”.
The Chinese government is willing to develop contacts over the long term and at times even the agencies have struggled to distinguish between legitimate relationships and spying. “China has a low threshold for what information is deemed to be useful,” the minister responsible Dan Jarvis told MPs on this week, but a sudden turn in the government situation may mean an individual rapidly peripheral becomes important.
An alternative perspective to think about the relentless activities at covert intelligence collection is in the broader framework of the geopolitical contest between Beijing and the Western nations at a threshold under the point of outright war. The nation has stepped up its cyber operations, with the one campaign infiltration of phone and data networks in numerous nations, and the another operation breach of countless connected equipment.
Chinese authorities is engaged in persistent efforts to identify covert sources on UK politics online because it seeks to be challenging, to demonstrate influence and because it can.
