A former MI6 deputy chief, Nigel Inkster, says Britain’s foreign intelligence service is not equipped to handle covert threats from China.
Inkster said his concerns arose from the fact that MI6 “clearly has difficulties, in terms of language knowledge and general collective historical and cultural awareness” when it comes to China.
He told the i newspaper: “In 2015, the British government was talking about a ‘golden era’ of UK-China relations… given that situation, it is perhaps not surprising that the security service is not where it should be.” be”.
During Lord David Cameron’s tenure as prime minister, he presided over the so-called “golden era” of relations between Britain and China. He forged close economic ties with the Asian superpower and hosted a state visit by President Xi Jinping in 2015.
However, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in November that Lord Cameron’s political return as Foreign Secretary late last year would not mean a return to his “golden era” approach to China.
Inkster said the UK’s blind spot extended to “the entire UK intelligence community”, which includes national counterintelligence MI5 and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
Inkster said Beijing had a well-established network of “industrial-scale cyber espionage operations directed against advanced Western countries.”
He also said: “We are seeing a significant increase in human intelligence gathering operations. [in-person contacts]and Chinese services essentially appear to be operating without political constraints, incentivized to take risks and do whatever it takes to obtain the intelligence that is required.”
But the current head of MI6, Sir Richard Moore, told Politico in July that MI6 now has more resources dedicated to China than any other mission, which “reflects the importance of China in the world and the crucial need to understand both the intention as well as the capacity of MI6. Chinese Government”.
However, Inkster fears that Britain’s recent increase in attention will not be enough to resist Beijing’s capabilities.
“I know that a lot of effort is being made to remedy those deficiencies,” he said. “A lot of resources are now being invested into improving the situation in the UK intelligence community… but that takes a certain amount of time.”
He also welcomed the new National Security Act, which became law in July after it was passed by Parliament and received royal assent.
He said the revised law would help prosecute Chinese spies, replacing “an Official Secrets Act that stemmed from World War I.”