Britain at risk from ‘wholly inadequate' defence to espionage threat from China

BRITAIN’S spy watchdog today slammed the Government for a “completely inadequate” response to Chinese espionage and interference which risked an “existential threat to liberal democratic systems”.

- Nicholas Cecil

In a bombshell report, parliament’s intelligence and security committee issued a series of alarming warnings about how British universities, the nuclear sector, government and companies were being targeted by Beijing.

Its 207-page damning dossier, compiled over four years, stated that:

⬤ The Government level of resource dedicated to tackling the threat posed by China’s “whole-of-state” approach to spying and interference was “completely inadequate”, despite an insistence from ministers that its response was “robust” and “clear-eyed”.

⬤ Much of the Chinese activity was overt rather than covert and there was a “serious failure” to identify the threats from Beijing and the UK was now “playing catch-up”.

⬤ Britain’s intelligence and security agencies had until recently not even recognised that they had any responsibility for countering Chinese interference activity in the UK, instead focusing on covert activity and tackling terrorism.

⬤ Without “swift and decisive action” against Chinese targeting of industry and technology, the UK was on a “trajectory for the nightmare scenario” where Beijing “steals blueprints, sets standards, and builds products, exerting political and economic influence at every step”.