Silent Threats: Unveiling China's Espionage Tactics in the UK

It is a question that successive governments have struggled with: what kind of threat does China really pose to the UK?

Trying to answer it may have contributed to the high-profile collapse of the case in which two British men, Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, were accused of spying for China and charged under the Official Secrets Act.

Both deny wrongdoing - but when charges were dropped last month, it sparked political outcry.

Prosecutors and officials have since offered conflicting accounts about whether a failure or unwillingness to label China as an active threat to national security led to the withdrawal of the charges. And yesterday Lord Hermer, the attorney general, blamed 'out of date' legislation for the case's collapse.

But this all raises the question of what exactly Chinese espionage looks like in the modern world.

On one level, China spies within the traditional framework of the old ways of human espionage associated with the Cold War, with spies working under the cover of being diplomats, and recruiting people to pass secrets.

The witness statement by a deputy national security adviser for prosecutors investigating the now-collapsed case of Cash and Berry outlines this kind of work.

'The Chinese Intelligence Services are interested in acquiring information from a number of sources, including policymakers, government staff and democratic institutions and are able to act opportunistically to gather all information they can.'

But this barely covers the breadth of the Chinese behaviour that worries security officials.

'Try not to think too much just in terms of classic card-carrying spies based out of the embassy in the John le Carre mould,' the head of MI5 Sir Ken McCallum said during a briefing on national security threats earlier this month.

For what truly sets China apart - and what lies at the heart of the problem - is that the national security threats China poses today go beyond traditional notions of espionage.

To complicate matters further, some of the threats are also closely tied up with the reasons many believe we need to engage with China.

China's economic power, for example, presents many potential benefits for a UK desperate for growth.

Labour is reported to be seeking to improve ties with China. However, securing the benefits of a relationship while navigating the associated risks is the hard task that has bedevilled governments.

The sheer size of Chinese intelligence – which some estimates put at half a million when you account for the entire workforce operating on security both at home and abroad – means they can afford to pursue their work at a larger scale than many other countries.

In practice, this has meant influencing political debate abroad, going after dissidents, collecting data at a large scale and ensuring economic growth at home.

MI5 issued an 'interference alert' in January 2022 about the activities of an alleged Chinese agent, Christine Lee, who was believed to have infiltrated Parliament.

Ms Lee denied the allegations, stating that the spy agency's alert about her carried a 'political purpose.'

Another area that worries UK security officials is China's predilection for spying on dissidents, known as transnational repression, with a focus on groups like Tibetan campaigners.

The arrival in the UK of many young pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong has heightened those concerns.

Beijing has always dismissed accusations of espionage as attempts to 'smear' the nation, emphasizing that it never interferes in other countries' internal affairs.

Yet, China has been linked to large-scale cyber operations. Last year Beijing was accused of trying to hack into the emails of MPs.

The reality is that it has shown itself perfectly capable of collecting data through remote cyber-access.

In the UK, plans for a new Chinese Embassy at the former Royal Mint building in London have drawn attention for fears it could allow for espionage by tapping data cables running underground beneath it.

However, some security officials downplay those dangers due to the potential for physical protection and monitoring of those cables.

In the end, without a clear, consistent strategy towards China, successive British governments will find it difficult to manage the complex web of threats and opportunities that modern espionage presents.