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CHINA
Capitalising on the pandemic
- The Secretary General of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), Jens Stoltenberg, and Sir John Sawers, former Chief of SIS, amongst others, have raised concerns about China buying strategic assets and critical infrastructure cheaply as a result of the crisis. MI5 told us that, at the time, it and the Joint State Threats Assessment Team (JSTAT) recognised this risk, and assessed that:
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- The UK Intelligence Community judged that China had used the opportunities presented by Covid-19 in the commercial space and also to increase its influence in global organisations, such as the WHO.[2] We were warned *** that, overall, the threat from China had increased and that it was likely to emerge from the pandemic "stronger and more aggressive than before".[3]
XXX. The key issue for the future is the extent to which China will now capitalise on the pandemic as other countries suffer its effects and how the UK Intelligence Community and their allies will stop this growing threat.
Impact on the UK Intelligence Community
- One of the broader consequences of the pandemic domestically was the large increase in the number of people in the UK who worked principally, or partly, from home. This included the staff of the Agencies. The (then) Deputy National Security Adviser told us that this had several implications for HMG's effort on China:
China is a cross-Government effort and any work on China needs to be done in a secure way. For these organisations, they are very used to communicating at very high levels of security.
One thing Covid did show us earlier this year was that when much of the Civil Service went to working from home, most departments ***.
***[4]
- MI5 told us that the pandemic had caused it to rapidly alter its processes to equip staff for low-side working, and noted that this approach had seen productive outcomes:
***[5]
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