CHINA
Global threat
- The UK's significant economic, political, military and commercial co-operation with China provides the Chinese government with numerous opportunities to spy on the UK globally, including through the many British individuals based abroad ***. The work undertaken by the UK Agencies is therefore international and cross-Agency. MI5 noted that *** and told us that:
***[1]
An obligation on Chinese nationals
- China has passed a number of pieces of security legislation in recent years.[2] These require Chinese citizens to provide assistance to the Chinese Intelligence Services (ChIS) and to protect state secrets—this includes Chinese locally engaged staff in embassies (and could also potentially be applied to foreign companies and even foreign nationals based in China). This would appear to be a clear avenue through which the Chinese staff of UK companies might be compelled to co-operate with China ***.[3]
- In November 2021, China's Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL)—a Chinese version of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—came into effect. This asserts state power over data belonging to both Chinese and foreign companies. According to legal experts, "the PIPL exerts certain exterritorial jurisdiction over data processing activities that happen outside China if the purpose is to provide products or services to individuals located in China, or to analyse or assess the behaviours of individuals located in China."[4] The Chinese government can therefore force Chinese and other companies to turn over their data as soon as it involves any Chinese citizens. However, in reality, it is not possible to compartmentalise Chinese citizens' data—meaning that China gets access to all data. A particular concern is China's use of this legislation to hoover up data from applications such as those used to book taxis and mini cabs—which can track a traveller's movements, capture photographs and link passengers to other users. We discuss China's collection of data in detail in our Case Study on Industry and Technology.
Use of journalist cover
- We questioned whether the UK's freedom of speech might also be exploited for the benefit of intelligence operations by China, including through the use of ***.[5] ***[6] However, it must be noted that ***.
- ↑ Oral evidence—MI5, *** December 2020.
- ↑ Including the Counter-espionage Law (2014), the National Security Law (2015), the National Cybersecurity Law (2016), the National Intelligence Law (2017) and Personal Information Protection Law (2021).
- ↑ Written evidence—HMG, 18 April 2019.
- ↑ Elisabeth Braw with Franco Palazzolo, 'Emerging Insights: How Ride-Hailing Businesses Collect and Manage Data: A National Security Risk?', Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), 4 October 2021.
- ↑ China's use of Academia to influence free speech and obtain information beneficial to its objectives is covered in our Case Study on Academia.
- ↑ Written evidence—MI5, 31 July 2020.
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