Chinese spies using LinkedIn to target British lawmakers, MI5 warns

By Christian Edwards, CNN

London (CNN) — Britain’s domestic spy service, MI5, warned lawmakers on Tuesday that China’s intelligence services are posing as recruiters to target people who work in Parliament, just weeks after the collapse of a case against two British nationals accused of spying for Beijing.

In an alert, MI5 said that the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) was using websites like LinkedIn to build relationships with parliamentarians, in an effort to “collect sensitive information on the UK to gain strategic advantage.”

Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, circulated the MI5 alert to Members of Parliament (MPs) and warned that Chinese state actors were “relentless” in their efforts to “interfere with our processes and influence activity at Parliament.” He listed two headhunters known to use LinkedIn profiles to “conduct outreach at scale” on behalf of Beijing.

“Let me speak plainly: this activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs in favour of its own interests, and this government will not tolerate it,” Security Minister Dan Jarvis told Parliament.

The Chinese embassy in London dismissed the claims as “pure fabrication and malicious slander.” It said it had urged Britain to “stop this self-staged charade of false accusations,” which it said was undermining relations between the countries.

MI5’s warning comes after prosecutors last month abruptly abandoned a case against two British men charged with spying on MPs for Beijing, claiming that the government’s evidence was missing a “critical element” which meant there was “no other option” but to collapse the case.

That “critical element,” prosecutors claimed, was the government’s refusal to call China an “enemy” or “national security threat.” Because the two men – Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, an academic – were charged under the Official Secrets Act 1911, they could only be prosecuted if the information they passed on was useful to an enemy. Because the British government had not labeled China an “enemy,” prosecutors said they had to drop the case.

Downing Street said no minister, member of the government or special adviser was involved. Instead, Prime Minister Keir Starmer blamed the previous Conservative government, which was in power at the time of the alleged offenses, for wording its policies “very carefully” so as not to describe China as an enemy.

Still, in the wake of the collapse of the case, Starmer was accused of prioritizing the relationship with Beijing over threats to Britain’s national security. The episode raised questions about Britain’s ability to balance the need to defend itself from espionage and interference while remaining economically engaged with the world’s second-largest economy. The Chinese embassy rejected the “baseless” allegations.

After the collapse, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said Chinese spies posed a daily national security threat to Britain. “When it comes to China, the UK needs to defend resolutely against threats and seize the opportunities that demonstrably serve our nation,” he said in his annual threat update in October.

Without referencing the collapse of the spy case, McCallum said that the National Security Act of 2023 had addressed “longstanding weaknesses” in British legislation and “strengthened our hand against state-backed threats.”

Jarvis, the security minister, said the latest attempts to use headhunters to spy on MPs “builds on a pattern” of hostile activity in recent years. He cited how Beijing-linked actors targeted parliamentarians’ emails in 2021 and “attempted foreign interference activity” in 2022 by Christine Lee, a British lawyer accused by MI5 of spying for Beijing.

MI5’s latest warning comes weeks before the government must decide whether to approve a huge new Chinese embassy in London. The decision was delayed in August after Beijing refused to explain why the plans contained blacked out areas, and critics have long said the planned complex would pose a security issue. China said Britain had shown a “total lack of spirit of contract” in delaying its decision.

Alicia Kearns, the Conservative shadow security minister, called on the government to refuse permission for the embassy and said ministers should cancel planned trips to China.

“What message does it send when, despite an attack on this House and our Parliament, ministers are happily jetting off to stride down red carpets with the government responsible?” Kearns said.

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