MPs warned over Chinese spies posing as headhunters

Chinese spies have been accused of posing as headhunters on LinkedIn to target MPs as part of a “widespread” operation to access information about the UK government, MI5 has warned.

- MILLIE COOKE, DAVID MADDOX

The Security Service issued a new alert over Chinese espionage after it found that two recruiters were using online profiles to contact people working in Westminster on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).

In a letter to MPs about the issue, Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said Chinese state actors were “relentless” in their attempts to “interfere with our processes and influence activity at parliament”.

He said that profiles under the names of Amanda Qiu and Shirly Shen were being “used to conduct outreach at scale” on behalf of China, while similar profiles were also acting as fronts for espionage.

Responding to the new alert, security minister Dan Jarvis said the government would not tolerate “covert and calculated” attempts by Beijing to interfere in the UK’s sovereign affairs, as he vowed to “disrupt, degrade and protect” against China’s “dangerous and unrestrained offensive cyber ecosystem”.

But Beijing’s embassy in the UK hit back, branding the allegations “a charade” and claiming that they are “pure fabrication and malicious slander”.

The allegations have reawoken serious concerns about the threat China poses to the UK, after the scandal surrounding the collapse of the trial of two men accused of spying for Beijing, which led to days of questions about whether the government had intervened to undermine the prosecution of the pair, one a former parliamentary researcher and the other an academic.

The latest warning follows previous concerns around China’s influence in the UK. There was controversy over the Chinese company Huawei being allowed to build and control the UK’s 5G network, and there have also been arguments about whether to allow China to build UK nuclear reactors, and Chinese investment in British universities.