China’s army of spies UK ‘prolifically targeting and aggressively’
CHINESE spies are “prolifically and aggressively” targeting the UK as part of Beijing’s bid to influence and buy up control in Britain, a scathing report revealed yesterday.
A senior group of MPs warned our businesses, universities and government departments are under attack.
They said Chinese intelligence services under leader Xi Jinping “indiscriminately” collect information on their UK targets, many of whom are first identified by its army of hackers on social media.
The long-awaited Intelligence and Security Committee report, blamed the failings of successive governments for China’s march on Britain, which MI5 warned could threaten the UK for “the next decade”.
Senior Tory Sir Iain Duncan Smith branded it “one of the most damning reports of Government security failings I have read in...30 years”.
‘We are on a trajectory for the nightmare scenario with China’
But Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insists his Government is “not complacent” and is working to “meet the challenge that China presents”.
The ISC report said Beijing has penetrated every area of the UK economy.
Committee chairman Julian Lewis said: “We are on a trajectory for the nightmare scenario where China steals blueprints, sets standards and builds products, exerting political and economic influence at every step.”
The report added: “China’s state intelligence apparatus – almost certainly the largest in the world with hundreds of thousands of civil intelligence officers...targets the UK and its interests prolifically and aggressively, and presents a challenge for our agencies to cover.”
The committee warned that spies target universities and think tanks – which Beijing sees as “a rich feeding ground for China to achieve political influence and economic advantage”.
It added: “China exerts influence over institutions by leveraging fees and funding, over individual UK academics through inducements and intimidation, over Chinese students by monitoring and controlling, and over think tanks through coercion.”
It added: “Chinese students make up the largest overseas contingent in UK universities and are responsible for generating almost £600million... China is actively using this income as leverage to gain political influence and control and to direct the narrative.
Investment
“It also provides direct investment to academic institutions so that it can guarantee input into academic programmes, direct research and ensure UK students are taught an interpretation of China that reflects the [Chinese Communist Party’s] interests.”
But the ISC claimed the Government has shown “very little interest” in alerts from academics. It also warned against Chinese involvement in the UK’s civil nuclear industry.
China General Nuclear last year exited the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project in Suffolk, but the committee insisted serious questions remained about future projects.
It said: “The Government would be naive to assume that allowing Chinese companies to exert influence over the UK’s civil nuclear and energy sectors is not ceding control to the Chinese Communist Party.
“China has been buying up and seeking to control or influence the UK’s industry and energy sector and – until the Covid-19 pandemic – Chinese money was readily accepted by HMG with few questions asked.”
Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, said in the report: “The challenge of the rise of China absolutely raises huge questions for the future of
the Western alliance.” He added: “It is clear for all of us that this is, I think, the central intelligence challenge for us across the next decade.”
Outlining the problems facing ministers, the ISC said: “The UK is now playing catch-up and the whole of Government has its work cut out to understand and counter the threat from China.
“It is clear China has taken advantage of the policy of successive British governments to boost economic ties between the UK and China, which has enabled it to advance its commercial, science and technology and industrial goals in order to gain a strategic advantage.”
It added: “The Government needs to ensure that it has its house in order, such that security concerns are not constantly trumped by economic interests.”
And it slammed the UK’s “completely inadequate” resources to tackle China’s “whole-of-state” approach.
Shambolic
Sir Iain, a leading critic of China, said: “The Government has got to pay attention, because they are in a mess.Their China policy is a complete and shambolic mess.”
But the PM insisted his Government would “continue adapting [its] approach and actions to meet the challenge China presents”. He added: “We are not complacent and we are keenly aware there is more to do. Wherever China’s actions or intent threaten the national interest, we will continue to take swift action.”
He also pointed out the ISC probe began in 2019 and took most of its evidence in 2020, before security reviews were carried out in 2021 and 2023.
Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said the new National Security Act, which gained Royal Assent this week, had “huge numbers of powers” many of which addressed concerns raised by the ISC.
He added: “This Government has taken state threats and indeed the challenge of China more seriously than any of its predecessors.
“It is quite clear the Prime Minister takes it seriously.”
Amid rising political tensions with China, and a scathing parliamentary report into the communist country’s improper influence in the UK, author TIM GLISTER recalls how the two nations nearly went to war over the former Crown colony
PRO-DEMOCRACY activists from Hong Kong have had £100,000 arrest bounties placed on their heads by the former UK Crown colony’s Beijing-controlled police. And yesterday a damning parliamentary report concluded China had successfully penetrated every sector of the British economy with its spying operations.
While the latest escalation is unprecedented, it isn’t the first time relations between the two nations have soured over the rights of Hong Kong nationals.
In fact, 56 years ago the two countries nearly went to war as political riots raged through the streets of the territory. But in the summer of 1967, campaigners clashed with police in support of communism as violent rioting tore the city state apart and The Beatles’ greatest hits blared across highrise rooftops. Protests consumed the then British colony as its population looked longingly over the border at the better living and working conditions that appeared to be on offer in the People’s Republic of China.
Trouble had been brewing since the previous spring, when increased ticket prices for the Star Ferry – at the time the only route for commuters between the Kowloon peninsula on the mainland and Hong Kong Island – had led to angry demonstrations and a wave of arrests. But 1967 was different. It was a true what-if moment – a flashpoint that could have changed global history.
I discovered the events of that summer while researching my third novel, A Game Of Deceit, and I became fascinated by the parallels with Hong Kong’s recent anti-communist resistance and how these forgotten protests shaped the future of the city.
Low-level labour disputes had been taking place across Hong Kong since February 1967, inspired by rumbling unrest in the neighbouring Portuguese colony of Macau.
THEN, on April 13, the management of the Hong Kong Artificial Flower Works announced harsh new employment rules. Its workers resisted them and, by May 6, 150 employees had been dismissed. Dissent quickly spread, with workers at other factories downing tools, issuing demands and staging rallies. By May 22 the situation had flared up into a full-blown riot.
There were clashes between the protesters and the police, doubledecker buses and trams were set on fire, and shop fronts were smashed.
The People’s Republic exploited the political opportunity it had been handed. The Bank of China – the only officially Chinese building in Hong Kong – was draped in 12storey-high banners covered in bright white and red anti-British slogans, which were also broadcast from loudspeakers installed on its roof.
Tensions continued to mount through
May and June. The British commando ship HMS Bulwark was dispatched to stand guard over the Crown colony.
Rolling general strikes were punctuated by bomb attacks. The first curfew since the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during the Second World War was implemented.
And six speakers were fixed to the roof of the Government Information Services building to drown out the slogans coming from the Bank of China with a loop of jazz and Beatles hits.
At the time, Hong Kong was a major hub for manufacturing and trade that Britain couldn’t afford to lose, yet there were fears China would use the civil unrest to forcefully demand the return of the colony that had been leased for 99 years to Britain. Despite tough rhetoric from ministers, withdrawal plans were secretly drawn up inWhitehall and Government House.
There was even an invasion of sorts by China on July 8, when a large armed group swarmed over the border in the village of Sha Tau Kok near Shenzhen, clashing with colonial police who retaliated with tear gas and wooden bullets.
Capitalism and communism were getting closer and closer to the knife-edge of war.
Then two things happened in late August that could very easily have plunged Britain and China into full-blown conflict but, remarkably, didn’t.
The first involved the arrest of journalists in Hong Kong in an attempt to stifle the anti-colonial press, which led to the British diplomatic offices in Beijing being firebombed by militants.
The second, two days later, was the assassination of local Hong Kong radio host Lam
Bun, who had been openly critical of the escalating protests in Kowloon. People realised the situation had spiralled out of control. Formal apologies were made, extremists were spurned and more moderate voices began to prevail.
The Hong Kong governor, David Trench, introduced some of the reforms he’d resisted so fervently, and the Crown colony’s hard-Left went into self-imposed isolation.
FIFTY-ONE people had been killed during the riots, another 832 had been injured, and almost 5,000 had been arrested. Damage to property ran into the millions of pounds. Yet the events of the summer of 1967 quickly faded from the official histories.
In a way, the riots predicted the 1997 handover of the entire colony to China at the end of Britain’s lease. But they also paved the way for Hong Kong to transform into a free-market powerhouse and laid its foundations as an open, global city.
Now, a generation later, the descendants of those original protesters are attempting to defend those rights against a ruling power that had once promised Hong Kong greater freedoms but has ended up limiting them.
●●A Game Of Deceit by Tim Glister (Oneworld, £9.99) is out now.Visit express bookshop.com or call 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25. Tim Glister will be appearing at The Theakston Old Peculier CrimeWriting Festival, which takes place from July 20-23.
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