The spying techniques of today are just as diverse. Defence industries, emergency services, manufacturing, energy systems, transport, water, financial services, government offices, even nuclear facilities, are all the targets of Chinese hackers. Plus, of course, military intelligence, for which China has plenty of capacity – with its Military Intelligence Department, General Staff Department, Third Department of the People’s Liberation Army, Signals Intelligence, Joint Staff Department and Strategic Support Force. And that is all before you get to the snooping on political institutions and communications. Investment in our manufacturing companies, too, is a quick route to gather information on data, business plans, suppliers, and customer lists. But it’s a cheap way of getting inside knowledge on product formulas, blueprints and other IP. The universities are also targeted by ‘businesspeople’ who give them millions to establish research centres. There are now over 150,000 in UK universities, nearly double the number ten years ago, with a disproportionate number of those in research-based institutions and programmes. Students come over, bringing juicy tuition fees. Indeed, universities and research organisations, with their valuable intellectual property and technical data, are a key target for China. And he knows that the UK’s response to China’s ‘increasingly sophisticated’ spying operation is ‘completely inadequate’, 50 Chinese students have ‘left’ (read: ‘been booted out of’) the UK after MI5 warned that it was well aware of Chinese intellectual property (IP) espionage in our universities. Rishi Sunak has raised ‘strong concerns’ with the Chinese Premier after a young parliamentary researcher with links to security minister Tom Tugendhat and the Foreign Affairs Committee chair Alicia Kearns was arrested amid reports that he has been spying for China.īut the PM knows that this is just the thin end of a very big security wedge and that the old-fashioned techniques of getting yourself into places of power is nothing compared to the sheer volume of cyber-spying that China specialises in. Beijing is good at spying, well equipped to do it, and prepared to throw money at the project.MI5 has warned of Chinese intellectual property theft in our universities.An accused spy in Parliament is just the thin end of the security wedge.
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