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

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Last week, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – consisting of Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States (US) – issued a joint bulletin warning of sophisticated campaigns by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to solicit classified information on military and intelligence matters.

Much of the content is similar to a warning issued by MI5 last year, whereby the British intelligence services stated that state-sponsored operations from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) saw attempts to recruit Britons with useful or classified information through professional networking sites such as LinkedIn.

But the warning issued last week elaborates on the details of these operations, such as advertisements of fake employment opportunities, with the purpose of extracting sensitive information from applicants during each subsequent interview phase.

The joint warning was published as Yvette Cooper, Foreign Secretary, visited Beijing to hold the 11th UK (United Kingdom)-PRC Strategic Dialogue in the PRC, prompting defensive remarks from Whitehall.

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