Beijing attempts to pilfer our parliamentarians

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Observing China is the essential newsletter to understand the UK-PRC relationship, explained in the context of global developments.

The sins of LinkedIn are no longer limited to self-aggrandisement and an alarming infiltration of cat videos: British parliamentarians and their staff are now being targeted by suspected spies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5.

Think tankers, and anyone else deemed to have valuable information or connections within government are also targeted, as the security services warn that the threshold for information considered ‘valuable’ by Beijing is low. It is no longer an attempt to gather state secrets; parliamentary staffers do not have access to this information anyway. It is about network mapping (knowing who is influential and a prudent target for lobbying) and knowing where the power lies.

Again, the messaging from Whitehall and Westminster is a bit confusing on the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s relationship with it. How can the public be assured that engagement and trade with the PRC is wise (as is outlined in the current government’s manifesto) when the front page of BBC News is plastered with news of Parliament as a consistent espionage target by the United Kingdom’s (UK) ‘third largest trading partner’? Should there perhaps be a clarification (and acknowledgement) of the various degrees of severity of espionage?

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