National Post (National Edition)
China accused of `brazen' spying
Britain's home secretary has accused China of spying on British universities and businesses, declaring that the U.K. would not tolerate such “brazen” interference.
Priti Patel said official secrets laws would be modernized to take account of new spy threats such as hack-andleak and online trolling to pursue a state's ends to steal secrets or destablise the U.K.
Although she did not mention China by name in her speech to the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation in Washington, it is understood she was referring to the Asian nation as she warned “espionage is evolving.”
“Governments continue to spy on each other, but spying now has a much further reach, including into our universities and businesses,” she said.
“It is not inherently improper for countries to try to influence each other, but we can never allow national security to be compromised.
“The activities of those hidden relationships where public figures are encouraged to push another country's interests, hack-and-leak operations, covert surveillance and organized online trolling.
“We in the U.K. will no longer tolerate the brazen way we have seen our national security subject to such activities. Our upcoming legislation will represent the biggest counter state threats legislation in decades.”
She said she would not hesitate to call out “malicious” state or state-backed organizations in Russia, China and Iran.
Patel cited how the U.K. revealed the Chinese were behind a computer hack via 250,000 Microsoft Exchange servers accessing email accounts, acquiring data, and deploying malware.
She said the U.K. would continue to hold China to account through a 2015 bilateral agreement setting out acceptable behaviour in cyberspace with China. “In December 2018, the U.K. and 14 other countries called out China's Ministry of State Security for breaching the agreement,” she said.
Other cases included an Iranian diplomat's bomb plot to blow up dissidents in Paris and an Iranian kidnap bid in New York. “All of this shows that complacency is not an option,” said Patel.
In the wake of the Liverpool women's hospital terror attack last Sunday, she warned that terrorism was also “mutating” and could be inspired in a “battleground or a bedroom.”
Disclosing that 31 terror plots had been foiled since 2017 in the U.K., she said plans by social media firms led by Facebook to extend end-to-end encryption where neither the platform operator nor law enforcement could see the content of messages “jeopardizes the good work that has gone before.”
She warned that freedom of speech did not include the right to incite terrorism and “reasonable” people would expect police to be able to track and tackle terrorist or child abuse content.