FBI and MI5 leaders have warned that China’s industrial espionage poses a growing threat to Western groups, even through special-purpose acquisition companies.
In a joint appearance in London, the heads of US and UK intelligence agencies called on companies to be much more vigilant with China.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Beijing used “elaborate interpreter games” to disguise its espionage and even took advantage of the Spacs.
“The Chinese government poses an even more serious threat to Western companies than even many sophisticated entrepreneurs think,” Wray told corporate leaders at an event with his MI5 counterpart Ken McCallum. “I want to encourage you to have a long vision while assessing the threat.”
The intelligence chiefs were holding the first public event between the two agencies, a move Wray said stressed the need to address Beijing’s expanding espionage challenge.
McCallum said MI5 had seen a seven-fold increase in China-related research since 2018, had doubled its capacity to deal with them over the past three years and would likely double capacity over the next few years. ” few years “.
Wray said FBI field offices in the U.S. opened an investigation into Chinese espionage on average every 12 hours.
“We’re not crying wolf,” McCallum said. “China is the threat that most changes the game in the sense that it permeates so many aspects of our national life.”
Wray said Beijing was using “all the tools” at its disposal to steal Western technology in an effort to wipe out non-Chinese companies and dominate its markets, even stealing genetically modified seeds from states’ farmland. Units.
He added that the Ministry of State Security, which oversees Chinese espionage efforts abroad, was approaching Western companies it wanted to “loot” to help obtain corporate secrets. Meanwhile, assessing the risks of Chinese counterparts was becoming increasingly difficult because Beijing was restricting access to the data needed for due diligence, he said.
Both intelligence chiefs stressed that China often employed people who were not directly connected to its intelligence services to target Western companies, a group Wray called “cooptees.”
They said companies needed to be more in tune with the fact that their dealings with Chinese companies could have connections to Beijing’s intelligence services, which McCallum described as “covert manipulation.”
“When you deal with a Chinese company, know that you are also dealing with the Chinese government, that is the MSS and the PLA. [People’s Liberation Army] – also, almost as silent partners, “Wray said in his speech.
The two heads of intelligence urged companies to intensify cooperation with the FBI and MI5, highlighting China’s ability to conduct large-scale espionage in a wide variety of activities and to have a long vision, courting politicians who are just beginning their careers.
McCallum and Wray insisted that companies be more vigilant, but not necessarily break away from China.
“The goal here is not to cut ourselves off from China. We want a connected and resilient UK,” McCallum said.
He cited the presence of 150,000 Chinese students studying in UK universities as “good for them and good for us”. But he said the investigation had led to 50 of them with military links.
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Wray also said companies should think more about the implications of China’s threat to Taiwan in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and stressed that Western companies had been caught in sanctions against Moscow and economic disruption.
“There were a lot of Western companies that still had their fingers on that door when it suddenly closed,” he said. “If China invades Taiwan, we could see the same thing again, on a much larger scale. As in Russia, Western investments built over the years could become hostages.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington rejected Wray and McCallum’s allegations. “Some American politicians have been tarnishing China’s image and painting China as a threat with false accusations,” an embassy spokesman said. “We strongly oppose his comments.”