MPs and Lords warned by MI5 over Chinese espionage using recruitment headhunters | ITV News

China is not just watching you.

China wants to recruit you. That was MI5's warning to Parliament today in what the Security Service called an espionage alert delivered to MPs, peers, and parliamentary staff.

>> Our intelligence agencies have warned that China is attempting to recruit and cultivate individuals with access to sensitive information about Parliament and the UK government.

This activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs in favor of its own interests.

>> The security service also identified two accounts on the LinkedIn social network which it said were being used to approach people around Westminster.

MI5 said the accounts operating under the names of Amanda Shu and Shirley Shen were being used on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

>> This evening, a parliamentary researcher told News at 10 he has been one of those targeted.

>> I saw this this morning for the first time um and immediately reported it to the Security Services of Parliament.

>> What did they say?

>> They said, "Thank you very much.

It was really, really useful and you did the right thing.

" >> And you haven't made contact with her?

Absolutely not.

>> Questions about how much is being done to protect our democracy have intensified since the collapse of the case against Christopher Barry and Christopher Cash, who both denied spying for China.

Christopher Cash had been working in parliament for this prominent China critic.

Is the government treating China seriously enough as the threat that it is?

>> Unfortunately, in my view, they are not doing enough to deter. As I say, look, we had the collapse of the China spy trial, and now almost 2 months on, there have been zero repercussions for Chinese Communist Party.

>> Of course, there's another side to relations with what is the world's second biggest economy, and the chancellor traveled there in January.

Critics suspect governments past and present have been too willing to overlook the security threat.

>> Why is that? Is it because there's too much business to be done in China?

>> Well, that's the view. But, you know, when the chancellor came back with 600 million pounds of investment over 5 years, you know, that's frankly insulting.

We shouldn't pretend that we're dependent.

We're not dependent.

Today, the government did announce a new plan to deter Chinese spying on our institutions with security briefings for parties and advice for candidates.

But the puzzle of how to treat China as both an economic partner and a security threat remains.

Carl Daily News at 10 Westminster.

>> Well, let's speak to Debbie in Beijing.

Has the Chinese government responded to this warning from MI5?

>> Well, Gamal, there's been no official response from the Chinese government here, but the Chinese embassy in London has released a statement describing these claims as pure fabrication and malicious slander.

They say they have lodged stern representations with the UK government and urged them to stop what they describe as self-stage charade of false allegations that are undermining China UK relations. And I expect we will hear a similar strong denial from the Chinese foreign ministry here in the coming hours.

But from our own investigations and from repeated warnings that we've heard from MI5 and FBI, there is evidence that China has one of the most expansive and sophisticated spying networks in the world.

MI5 has described it as a continuous dayto-day threat.

And we've seen examples of this globally.

Just in recent months, an aid to a German politician was jailed for spying.

And in Canada, more than 20 government computer networks were found to have been compromised over a 4-year period.

So governments around the world, including the UK, are having to confront the scale of the challenge posed by China and decide when that challenge crosses the line to become a strategic threat.

It appears perhaps in the UK we're getting closer to that threshold and the Labor government's attempts to balance economic ties against security concerns are becoming increasingly difficult.

>> Jing, thank you. Thank you. And Carl is here.

Um Carl, I guess it's quite embarrassing for the government to be one minute courting the Chinese government and the next minute calling them out.

>> Yeah, it never looks good when one of these stories comes up. The first thing that gets wheeled out is the picture of the last senior government minister to jet off to Beijing. In this case, it was the chancellor.

We get the pictures of David Cameron going to the pub with Chinese president.

Um because the government is trying to do two things at once.

And I mean, China experts tell me that the Chinese government is quite good at compartmentalizing these.

It's much more difficult uh for our government in a more open society scrutinized by the media. And and it's not as if there's just like spying over here and business over here.

Sometimes uh they come wrapped up in the same package.

The government has only just finished the process of stripping out Chinese bought surveillance cameras from sensitive sites which has been going on for the last couple of years.

And now they found that the MOD has been using Chinese cars and they've had to warn personnel off from having sensitive conversations in those cars or plugging their devices into those cars.

And all of this is going to reach a crescendo in the coming weeks because Steve Reed, the community secretary, has to make a huge call on whether or not to allow a big new Chinese embassy project to go ahead right on the edge of the city of London near some very sensitive communications cables.