WORKING WITH OUR ALLIES
- Given the difficulty of obtaining intelligence on China and countering its activity, intelligence-sharing relationships with other countries are vital: one of the Government's key messages in the Integrated Review was that the UK is stronger as part of an alliance, and we have sought to establish whether that is being put into practice and where the challenges lie.
Five Eyes
- The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network is vital to UK efforts in countering the challenges posed by China. SIS told the Committee that, within the Five Eyes community, there is very strong, increasing co-operation on China.[1] Director GCHQ told the Committee: "When the UK, with its allies, focuses on the targets it most cares about, it can have real … impactful effect, and I have absolutely no doubt about that."[2] Of great importance is the burden-sharing arrangement between the partners ***. From the evidence presented below, it can be seen that the UK benefits significantly from the Five Eyes partnership in the case of China.
- SIS told the Committee that, in 2020, ***% of UK coverage of China came from ***.[3] Without that *** assistance, tackling the threat would be much more difficult. This is also clear in relation to ***—in 2020, ***% of coverage was derived from *** collection.[4]
- For GCHQ, it was a similar picture in terms of the "collaborative … analytical sharing ***" with ***; and ***.[5]
- One of the ways in which GCHQ works with Five Eyes allies is on countering malign Chinese cyber activities[6] ***. GCHQ told us:
Predominantly, the key allies we have been working with are Five Eyes allies and we have had considerable success **. So a really joined up effort … and I see this continuing to expand into the foreseeable future … we are calling out malign activity, we are trying to impose a cost on those actors *** for acting in that way. ***.[7]
- The Committee was told that China was the single biggest issue at the ***. ***.[8] The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) Chair told us that DI had been the primary organisation
- ↑ Oral evidence—SIS, *** July 2019.
- ↑ Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** July 2019.
- ↑ Oral evidence—SIS, *** July 2019.
- ↑ Oral evidence—SIS, *** July 2019.
- ↑ Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** July 2019.
- ↑ In July 2022, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gave a joint address to industry with Director General MI5, in which he referred to work with the UK on the Chinese cyber threat and said that "together [with MI5] we can also run joint, sequenced operations that disrupt Chinese government cyber attacks".
- ↑ Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** October 2020.
- ↑ Written evidence—HMG, 9 August 2019.
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