A surprising connection on LinkedIn. An offer of employment from a headhunter, probably a young woman, based in China. The chance to make around £20,000 on the side writing a handful of geopolitical reports for a firm from China containing confidential or “insider” information. Compensation in digital currency or cash preferred.
It might appear obvious, on this telling, that something about this method would be suspicious. However, China’s powerful intelligence agency continues to view it worthwhile to deploy headhunters to try it – prompting MI5 to warn repeatedly about their operations on the internet.
Large-Scale Approaches on Professional Networks
In 2023, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said operatives from China were contacting Britons on LinkedIn on an extraordinary scale, at a frequency of 10,000 over the preceding 30-month period, seeking political, industrial, military and technological secrets. But a fresh campaign targeting elected officials and parliament has prompted the spy agency to take further action.
An espionage warning was issued on this week via the administrative teams of the Commons speaker and his House of Lords counterpart: a brief presentation after the repeated efforts of Shirly Shen and Amanda Qiu to contact Members of Parliament, lords, their staffers, economic experts, research organizations – anybody who might provide information.
Intelligence Approach and Legislative Updates
In the typical manner of British intelligence, there was no publication of the security advice from MI5 or the interior ministry. But the agency was aware its advisory document would leak once it was sent electronically out to parliament. Republishing it in the media assists the wider public more easily recognize communications with a fraudulent intent.
This warning has the effect of flushing out more information from within parliament, although that is not MI5’s main objective. The agency wants public figures to recognize that just because interactions on LinkedIn are not as toxic as on other social platforms, it doesn't imply they are completely safe.
Additionally, the internal security service understood to have been reacting to any specific incident in parliament, though the recent actions does come after the awkward collapse of the legal case of a ex-assistant an individual and his friend Christopher Berry on a legal detail in recent months.
Both individuals had been accused of working for the foreign power – a allegation they rejected – but inability to complete a trial under the now repealed previous legislation led to warnings that the UK's political system had been insufficiently defended.
Updated Legislation and China's Strategic Goals
Legislation has since been updated, and the security briefing contains a note of its replacement: “Those engaging in spying operations risk significant legal consequences under the National Security Act.” It is a criminal offense if somebody engages in conduct that could potentially “significantly help a foreign intelligence service”.
An obvious question, however, is what China has to achieve. An elected representative who is outside ministerial roles will have limited knowledge of sensitive information, and an associate of theirs even less. But the Chinese government is also interested in the legislative body: for a time, in recent years, the UK’s approach to China on issues such as the telecom firm or the human rights situation or alleged atrocities was being influenced by MPs.
Cultural Variations and Ongoing Digital Threats
To a degree there are distinct approaches too. Authoritarian governments like China’s export intelligence collection methods and the size of its intelligence apparatus is vast, engaging 300,000 people. A former US official, a American cybersecurity head under the US administration, said it was occasionally assessed that “the Chinese have greater linguistic capacity engaged in this than we [western intelligence] have English speakers”.
The Chinese government is willing to develop contacts over the extended period and sometimes even the intelligence services have struggled to differentiate legitimate relationships and spying. “Beijing has a minimal requirement for which details is deemed to be useful,” security minister Dan Jarvis informed MPs on this week, but a rapid shift in the political cycle may mean an individual quickly peripheral turning significant.
An alternative perspective to consider the continuous activities at secret information gathering is in the wider context 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 Salt Typhoon penetration of phone and data networks in 80 countries, and the Volt Typhoon compromise of countless connected equipment.
Beijing is involved in relentless attempts to find secret informants on British democracy via digital means because it wants to be provocative, to demonstrate power and because it has the capability.
