Espionage

 

UK will do more to counter Chinese spying threat, says MI5 chief

Britain’s domestic security service MI5 is “looking to do more” to counter the espionage risk from China as the threat posed by states hostile to the UK increases, its new director-general Ken McCallum revealed on Wednesday. Mr McCallum, who was speaking publicly via a virtual briefing for the first time since taking up his post in April, said security agencies were battling competing priorities. “The national security challenges presented by Russian, Chinese, Iranian and other actors are growing in severity and in complexity,” he said. “We face a nasty mix — terrorism isn’t going away, and state-backed hostile activity is on the rise.” He said that while Beijing’s espionage efforts typically take the form of “hacking commercially sensitive information or commercially sensitive data, and intellectual property”, UK spies have also detected attempts by Chinese counterparts to influence politics. One operation, to gain intelligence on the EU, was foiled last month by MI5 and Belgian security services.