China using Linkedin to recruit spies
As the world was normalising following Covid-19 related restrictions, Gunjan Sharma (name changed), a researcher specializing in the Pacific region who had a strong network among government officials, received an invitation to connect on her Linkedin profile from an individual who said he was associated with a Beijing-based think-tank.
The said individual, after a regular exchange of messages, invited Sharma to speak on a topic of her research in Beijing. The event, he claimed, would have speakers from other countries and the expenses incurred on travelling, lodging and a three-day sightseeing would be borne by the think-tank. After consulting her senior colleagues and government officials, Sharma declined the invitation and soon enough, the said profile of the individual, who had been interacting with her and had extended the invitation, disappeared.
Whether the individual who had approached Sharma was someone who was really working with a thinktank or whether he was a part of a Chinese intelligence agency, scouring Linkedin for would-be informers and spies, is unlikely to be confirmed ever.
While it is not clear as to how aware Indian intelligence agencies are of the fact that Linkedin is being used as a “recruiting” ground by individuals working for Chinese intelligence, their Western counterparts have been keeping an eye on these developments for quite some time now.
In 2017, German intelligence agencies found at least 10,000 attempts had been made by Chinese agencies to recruit people through Linkedin; most of these 10,000 were based in Switzerland. In 2018, William Evanina, the then US counter-intelligence chief, had stated that Linkedin, owned by Microsoft Corporation, was witnessing China’s “super aggressive” efforts to use it as a recruitment pool for spies.
Earlier, Chinese agencies would target government officers, diplomats and military officers, but now they have moved towards cultivating people working in the private sector. The targets of these Chinese intelligence agents, many of whom are “freelancers” and are not officially part of any government agencies, are determined on the basis of two things: whether they can be used to form a positive public opinion about China and secondly, whether they can provide technical and scientific knowhow which can be used by Chinese companies.
In many cases, especially pre-galwan, when the number of Indians, including government officials, going to China for professional reasons was huge, the intended target was not even aware that he had walked into a well-calculated set-up.
In many cases, the target does not even realise that the “expert” inputs to the questions that have been asked by his Chinese acquaintances for a purported paper or an academic presentation, that he has been sharing were for the subsequent use of Chinese military strategists.
The bait being offered by the Linkedin spies to their