China has rejected the claims of the United States and United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence services chiefs about Chinese economic espionage, which can prove a game-changer move.
China has rejected the accusations as “groundless”, and said that this campaign of the US and UK was an attempt to “smear” its political system.
Director of the UK’s MI5 Ken McCallum said that the China’s covert pressure across the globe amounts to “the most game-changing challenge we face”.
Meanwhile, Chris Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), warned Western firms that Beijing was determined to steal their technology for competitive gain, Al-Jazeera reported today.
McCallum and Wray’s address in London was their first joint appearance. The Chinese threat “might feel abstract. But it’s real and it’s pressing,” McCallum said. “We need to talk about it. We need to act.”
He said the MI5 had sharply expanded its China-focused operations.
“Today we’re running seven times as many investigations as we were in 2018,” he said. “We plan to grow as much again, while also maintaining significant effort against Russian and Iranian covert threats.”
McCallum said Chinese intelligence takes a slow and patient approach to developing sources and gaining access to information, and few of those targeted recognised themselves as such.
“Hostile activity is happening on UK soil right now,” he said.
“By volume, most of what is at risk from Chinese Communist Party aggression is not, so to speak, my stuff. It’s yours – the world-leading expertise, technology, research and commercial advantage developed and held by people in this room, and others like you.”
