UK/US espionage anger: ‘China is a hostile state’
Britain and the United States have accused China of launching a “prolific” global campaign of cyberattacks targeting the personal information of politicians, journalists, academics and millions of voters.
In an unprecedented joint operation to expose Chinese espionage, London and Washington revealed details of a decadelong campaign by Beijing to “repress critics, compromise government institutions and steal trade secrets”.
Among the targets was the New Zealand Parliament, in 2021. Defence Minister Judith Collins said security agencies were able “to contain the activity and remove the actor shortly after they were able to access the network”.
British ministers revealed that China had gained access to a “treasure trove” of personal information in a cyberattack on the election watchdog and had attempted to spy on MPs critical of Beijing.
US officials disclosed that a small group of Chinese hackers, known as Advanced Persistent Threat 31 (APT31), had compromised the emails, cloud storage and phone records of millions of Americans. The hackers sent 10,000 “malicious” emails to their targets to compromise their systems.
The US warned that this information could be used to target democratic processes and institutions, economic plans, intellectual property and trade secrets belonging to American businesses.
The UK sanctioned two Chinese officials and one organisation in response to the hacks, and the US charged seven people over attacks which they said had taken place since at least 2010.
The two people sanctioned by the UK are Zhao Guangzong, 38, and Ni Gaobin, 38. Both men are said to be members of the APT31 group as well as Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd, which the government said was a front organisation for APT31. Ministers are poised to formally declare China a threat to Britain’s national security following revelations of the scale of its cyberattack, Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, has indicated.
The attack on the Electoral Commission gave Chinese hackers access to the names and addresses of more than 40 million people on the electoral roll between 2014 and 2022. Hackers also obtained emails from the system.
Officials believe that the information could be mapped on to other data sets to help to target individuals, especially dissident groups in the UK. Bulk data collection is a tactic known to be widely used by Beijing, and artificial intelligence has enabled the state to make better use of it.
Dowden told the Commons that the UK's political processes and institutions had not been harmed by the cyberattacks.
Beijing denied the claims of hacking. The Chinese embassy said: “The so-called cyberattacks by China against the UK are completely fabricated and malicious slanders. We strongly oppose such accusations. China has always firmly fought all forms of cyberattacks according to law. China does not encourage, support or condone cyberattacks.”
Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, described the UK government's response as derisory and accused it of “letting China off cost-free”. He said: “This feeble response will only embolden China to continue its aggression towards the UK. It is crystal clear that China should be classified as a hostile state.”
Merrick Garland, the US attorney-general, said the investigation showed “the ends to which the Chinese government is willing to go to target and intimidate its critics” and to threaten the “national security of the United States and our allies”.