"Brazen" Chinese Spying
"Governments continue to spy on each other, but spying now has a much further reach, including into our universities and businesses.""It is not inherently improper for countries to try to influence each other, but we can never allow national security to be compromised.""The activities of those hidden relationships where public figures are encouraged to push another country's interests, hack-and-leak operations, covert surveillance and organized online trolling...""We in the U.K. will no longer tolerate the brazen way we have seen our national security subject to such activities. Our upcoming legislation will represent the biggest counter state threats legislation in decades."Priti Patel British Home Secretary
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UK Home Secretary Patel Accuses 'brazen' China For Spying On Universities: Report AP |
Taking a page out of Australia's book in defence of national security and the values of their political system in enacting a law that would prohibit 'corrupt, coercive or covert interference' in Australian politics, the U.K. knows full well what a rough track it has in future relations with a trade colossus that expresses its displeasure at criticism aimed at it from any quarter for any reason in vicious trade exchange interruptions and diplomatic hostage-taking, ahead. Beijing has failed to 'notice' that other nations do take notice at its constant interference in their national affairs.
China's installation of the Chinese Communist Party's major foreign interference arm, the United Front Work Department, has fomented and encouraged underhanded, covert and aggressive push-back by Chinese Mainland residents of other countries who have taken citizenship with their countries of adoption. It is past time that Britain publicly acknowledged that China spies on British businesses and universities; they've done so for decades, purloining any intelligence of value to Chinese interests.
To counter these espionage threats through an ever-bolder Chinese strategy of taking advantage of other nations' advances in academia, science, technology and business, the U.K.'s official secrets laws are to be modernized in view of new spying threats and online trolling in efforts to destabilize and steal secrets. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation in Washington, she warned her audience, "espionage is evolving" and she held no compunction in naming Russia, China and Iran.
Chinese state-linked hackers were behind a computer hack involving 250,000 Microsoft Exchange servers accessing email accounts, acquiring data, and deploying malware. The U.K. plans to hold China to account through a bilateral agreement setting out acceptable behaviour in cyberspace with China. "In December 2018, the U.K. and 14 other countries called out China's Ministry of State Security for breaching the agreement", she stated.
She spoke of 31 terror plots having been foiled since 2017 and social media firms' plans to extend end-to-end encryption where neither the platform operator nor law enforcement could see the content of messages "jeopardizes the good work that has gone before". Freedom of speech, she warned, did not include the right to incite terrorism and "reasonable" people should be able to rely on police to track and tackle terrorist or child abuse content.
Labels: China, Cyber Attacks, Defence, Espionage, Piti Pratel, Security, United Kingdom
posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 22, 2021
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