A surprising contact on LinkedIn. An offer of work from a recruiter, most likely a young woman, based in China. The chance to earn perhaps £20,000 on the side writing a small number of political analyses for a Chinese company containing confidential or privileged insights. Payment in digital currency or cash preferred.
It may seem obvious, on this telling, that something about this method would be suspicious. However, Beijing's influential intelligence agency continues to view it valuable to use recruitment consultants to attempt this – leading MI5 to warn repeatedly about their operations online.
Large-Scale Contact Attempts on Social Media
Last year, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said operatives from China were approaching Britons on the platform on an extraordinary scale, at a frequency of 10,000 over the preceding two and a half years, seeking governmental, commercial, defense and scientific classified information. But a new campaign targeting politicians and parliament has led the intelligence service to take further action.
A spying warning was issued on Tuesday via the administrative teams of Lindsay Hoyle and his House of Lords equivalent: a single slide after the repeated efforts of certain individuals and other operatives to contact Members of Parliament, peers, their staffers, economists, thinktanks – anyone who might provide information.
Intelligence Approach and Legislative Updates
In the typical style of UK security services, there was no official release of the security advice from the agency or the Home Office. But the agency was aware its advisory document would leak once it was sent electronically out to parliament. Republishing it in the press helps the wider public better identify interactions with a deceptive purpose.
The alert has the effect of flushing out additional details from in and around parliament, though that is not the agency's primary purpose. The service wants public figures to understand that simply because interactions on professional networks are less overtly risky as on X or Facebook, it doesn't imply they are without risk.
Nor is domestic spy agency understood to have been reacting to any specific incident in the legislature, though the burst of activity does come after the embarrassing collapse of the legal case of a ex-assistant an individual and his associate Christopher Berry on a legal detail in recent months.
The two had been accused of working for China – a allegation they denied – but failure to successfully conclude a prosecution under the since replaced Official Secrets Act resulted in concerns that the UK's political system had been left unprotected.
Revised Laws and China's Strategic Interests
Legislation has now been changed, and the MI5 slide includes a note of its successor: “Individuals involved in spying operations face significant criminal penalties under the National Security Act.” This constitutes a criminal offense if somebody engages in conduct that could potentially “materially assist a foreign intelligence service”.
A natural inquiry, however, is what China has to achieve. An elected representative who is outside ministerial roles will have restricted access of sensitive information, and an contact of theirs even less. But the Chinese government is also interested in parliament: for a period, in recent years, the UK’s approach to China on issues such as Huawei or the human rights situation or alleged atrocities was being driven by parliamentarians.
Cultural Variations and Persistent Cyber Threats
In part there are distinct approaches too. Autocratic regimes like Beijing's export information gathering methods and the size of its intelligence apparatus is enormous, engaging three hundred thousand people. Chris Inglis, a US national cyber director under the US administration, commented it was sometimes estimated that “China have more English speakers engaged in this than Western agencies have English speakers”.
Beijing is prepared to cultivate people over the long term and sometimes even the intelligence services have found it difficult to distinguish between genuine connections and espionage. “China has a minimal requirement for what information is considered to be of value,” security minister a government official told parliamentarians on this week, but a sudden turn in the government situation may result in an individual quickly peripheral turning significant.
Another way to consider the relentless efforts at covert information gathering is in the wider context of the geopolitical contest between China and the west at a level under the point of outright war. The nation has increased its hacking efforts, with the Salt Typhoon penetration of phone and data networks in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon breach of millions connected equipment.
Beijing is engaged in relentless efforts to find secret informants on UK politics online because it wants to be challenging, to display power and because it has the capability.
