A surprising connection on LinkedIn. An offer of employment from a headhunter, probably a female agent, operating from China. The opportunity to make around £20,000 on the side preparing a small number of political reports for a firm from China containing confidential or privileged information. Compensation in cryptocurrency or physical money preferred.
It may seem obvious, on this telling, that something about this method would be amiss. Nevertheless, China’s influential intelligence agency still considers it worthwhile to use headhunters to attempt this – leading MI5 to issue multiple warnings about their operations online.
Large-Scale Contact Attempts on Social Media
Last year, MI5 chief the agency's director stated Chinese agents were approaching UK citizens on the platform on an extraordinary scale, at a rate of 10,000 over the previous 30-month period, attempting to obtain political, commercial, defense and technological secrets. But a new campaign aimed at politicians and Westminster has prompted the intelligence service to take further action.
A spying warning was distributed on this week via the offices of Lindsay Hoyle and his Lords counterpart: a single slide after the persistent attempts of certain individuals and other operatives to reach out to Members of Parliament, lords, their assistants, economists, research organizations – anybody who might become a source.
Intelligence Approach and Legislative Changes
In the curious manner of UK security services, there was no publication of the protective guidance from MI5 or the interior ministry. But the agency knew its briefing note would become public once it was emailed out to parliament. Republishing it in the media assists the general population more easily recognize communications with a fraudulent purpose.
This warning has the impact of uncovering more information from within Westminster, though that is not MI5’s primary purpose. The agency aims for people in public life to understand that simply because exchanges on LinkedIn are not as toxic as on X or Facebook, it does not mean they are completely safe.
Additionally, the internal security service believed to have been reacting to a particular event in parliament, although the burst of activity does come after the embarrassing collapse of the prosecution of a ex-assistant Christopher Cash and his friend another person on a legal detail in recent months.
Both individuals had been charged of working for China – a allegation they rejected – but failure to successfully conclude a prosecution under the since replaced Official Secrets Act resulted in warnings that the UK's political system had been insufficiently defended.
Updated Legislation and Beijing's Long-Term Interests
The law has since been updated, and the MI5 slide includes a note of its replacement: “Those engaging in spying operations face significant legal consequences under the new security law.” This constitutes a criminal offense if somebody engages in behavior that is or is likely to “significantly help a foreign intelligence service”.
An obvious question, though, is what China has to achieve. A politician who is outside ministerial roles will have restricted access of sensitive information, and an associate of theirs even less. But the Chinese government is also interested in parliament: for a time, in 2020 and 2021, the UK’s approach to China on issues such as Huawei or the Uyghur repression or genocide was being driven by MPs.
Methodological Variations and Ongoing Cyber Threats
In part there are distinct approaches too. Authoritarian governments like Beijing's utilize intelligence collection techniques and the scale of its intelligence apparatus is enormous, engaging three hundred thousand people. A former US official, a US national cyber director under the US administration, said it was occasionally assessed that “China have greater linguistic capacity involved in this than we [western intelligence] have personnel with language skills”.
The Chinese government is willing to cultivate people over the long term and at times even the agencies have struggled to distinguish between genuine connections and espionage. “Beijing has a minimal requirement for what information is deemed to be of value,” security minister Dan Jarvis told MPs on this week, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may mean an individual quickly peripheral becomes significant.
Another way to consider the relentless activities at covert information gathering is in the broader framework of the geopolitical contest between Beijing and the west at a threshold under the level of outright war. China has stepped up its hacking efforts, with the one campaign infiltration of phone and data networks in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon compromise of countless connected equipment.
Beijing is involved in relentless efforts to identify secret informants on British democracy via digital means because it wants to be provocative, to display power and because it has the capability.
