An unexpected contact on LinkedIn. A proposal of employment from a recruiter, most likely a young woman, based in China. The opportunity to make perhaps £20,000 part-time writing a small number of political analyses for a Chinese company containing “non-public” or “insider” insights. Payment in digital currency or cash preferred.
It may seem obvious, on this telling, that something about this approach would be suspicious. Nevertheless, Beijing's influential Ministry of State Security still considers it worthwhile to deploy recruitment consultants to try it – leading MI5 to issue multiple warnings about their operations online.
Massive Contact Attempts on Professional Networks
Last year, the head of MI5 the agency's director said Chinese agents were contacting UK citizens on LinkedIn on an extraordinary scale, at a rate of 10,000 over the previous 30-month period, attempting to obtain political, commercial, military and scientific classified information. But a new initiative targeting politicians and parliament has prompted the spy agency to take further action.
A spying warning was issued on this week via the administrative teams of the Commons speaker and his Lords equivalent: a brief presentation after the repeated efforts of Shirly Shen and Amanda Qiu to reach out to Members of Parliament, peers, their staffers, economic experts, thinktanks – anyone who might become a source.
Security Strategy and Legal Updates
In the curious style of UK security services, there was no official release of the security advice from MI5 or the Home Office. Yet the agency was aware its advisory document would leak once it was sent electronically out to Westminster. Republishing it in the press helps the wider public more easily recognize communications with a fraudulent intent.
This warning has the impact of flushing out more information from in and around Westminster, although that is not MI5’s main objective. The service wants people in public life to understand that just because interactions on LinkedIn are less overtly risky as on other social platforms, it doesn't imply they are completely safe.
Nor is domestic spy agency understood to have been responding to a particular event in the legislature, though the recent actions occur after the awkward failure of the legal case of a ex-assistant Christopher Cash and his associate Christopher Berry on a legal detail earlier in the autumn.
Both individuals had been charged of working for the foreign power – a charge they rejected – but failure to successfully conclude a trial under the since replaced Official Secrets Act resulted in warnings that the UK's political system had been left unprotected.
Revised Legislation and Beijing's Long-Term Goals
Legislation has since been updated, and the MI5 slide contains a reminder of its successor: “Individuals involved in spying operations face significant legal consequences under the National Security Act.” This constitutes a criminal offense if somebody participates in behavior that is or is likely to “materially assist a overseas spy agency”.
An obvious question, however, is what China has to gain. An elected representative who is outside ministerial roles will have restricted knowledge of classified material, and an associate of theirs even less. Yet the Chinese government is particularly focused in parliament: for a time, in recent years, the Britain's approach to China on matters such as Huawei or the human rights situation or alleged atrocities was being influenced by MPs.
Methodological Variations and Persistent Digital Risks
To a degree there are cultural differences as well. Authoritarian governments like China’s export intelligence collection methods and the size of its spy network is vast, engaging 300,000 individuals. Chris Inglis, a American cybersecurity head under president Joe Biden, said it was occasionally assessed 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 found it difficult to differentiate legitimate relationships and espionage. “Beijing has a low threshold for which details is deemed to be useful,” the minister responsible Dan Jarvis informed parliamentarians on Wednesday, but a sudden turn in the political cycle may result in someone quickly marginal turning significant.
Another way to think about the continuous efforts at secret intelligence collection is in the wider context of the geopolitical contest between Beijing and the west at a threshold below the level of direct conflict. China has stepped up its hacking efforts, with the one campaign infiltration of communications systems in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon breach of countless internet devices.
Beijing is engaged in persistent attempts to find covert sources on British democracy online because it seeks to be provocative, to demonstrate influence and because it can.
