Beware China’s sexy ‘honey trap’ spies, G20 officials are warned

SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT THERESA MAY’S officials have been warned to avoid “honey traps” amid fears that the Prime Minister’s team will be targeted by Chinese spies during the G20 summit.

British government aides have fallen victim to spying on previous official trips to China, with one Downing Street official reported to have had his mobile phone and secret documents stolen after he was seduced.

Security chiefs are anxious to avoid a repeat of the incident, which took place during a visit by Gordon Brown in 2008, and have provided detailed guidance to Mrs May’s team.

The Prime Minister’s officials have been told to take steps to protect themselves during the G20 summit, which begins today. They have been issued with temporary mobile phones and email addresses in an attempt to evade Chinese state hackers.

Security advisers are also warning staff not to keep gifts they receive and to be particularly wary of electronic devices, such as free computer memory sticks, mobile phone Sim cards or chargers which they are offered by their Chinese hosts.

One Whitehall source said security chiefs had warned them that hotel rooms were likely to be bugged. “We have been told that if you feel uncomfortable about people seeing you naked, you should get changed under your bedclothes,” the source said.

British security agencies regard China as one of the most aggressive nations when it comes to launching cyber attacks against Western governments and businesses, as well as posing a major espionage threat to the UK.

There are fears that Chinese intelligence agents will use their capability to intercept emails and phone calls and to install spy software on computers during the summit.

However, one of the gravest threats posed by foreign spies is also one of the oldest: the honey trap.

During Mr Brown’s visit to China in 2008, one of the Number 10 officials accompanying the then prime minister reportedly fell prey to a “beautiful” female Chinese spy. She went back to his hotel room, drugged him and stole his mobile phone along with documents from his briefcase.

The incident was described by Mr Brown’s former spin doctor, Damian McBride, in his 2013 memoir,

The Number 10 team had been “accosted on one side by a beautiful posse of Chinese girls and on the other side by an equivalent group of Russian blondes”, Mr McBride wrote.

“Even before our resident security expert could warn us that their interest The G20 summit takes place in Hangzhou, above. It comes at a time of tension between China and the UK following Mrs May’s decision to put on hold the Hinkley Point deal was not to be taken at face value, we looked up and saw one of our number disappearing up the stairs to the exit with one of the girls, beaming back at us.”

He woke up the following morning “minus his Blackberry and half the contents of his briefcase”.

The official also had a “very bad headache, owning to the Mickey Finn nightcap his overnight companion had administered to him in his hotel room”.

The G20 summit in Hangzhou comes at a time of tension between Britain and China. Within weeks of entering Downing Street in July, Mrs May put on hold a final decision on whether to approve a Chinese-backed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

She was concerned about the potential risks to British security of allowing China to take such a major role in running a critical nuclear energy plant.

Shortly after Mrs May’s decision, the Chinese ambassador in London warned that blocking the £18 billion project would put Britain’s future relationship with China in doubt.

Mrs May is due to have her first faceto-face meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, tomorrow.