Two headhunters named Amanda Qiu and Shirly Shen appeared on LinkedIn offering lucrative freelance work authoring geopolitical consultancy reports, but MI5 now confirms they served as fronts for China’s Ministry of State Security conducting recruitment operations targeting British parliamentarians, staffers, and officials with access to sensitive government information.
On Tuesday, Britain’s domestic intelligence service issued an espionage alert to MPs, Peers, and Parliamentary staff warning that Chinese intelligence officers are attempting to recruit individuals through professional networking sites in what Security Minister Dan Jarvis characterized as a “covert and calculated attempt by China to interfere with our sovereign affairs”.
House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle circulated the MI5 alert warning that Chinese state actors were “relentless” in their efforts to interfere with parliamentary processes and influence activity at Westminster. The alert named two specific LinkedIn profiles believed to be conducting outreach at scale on behalf of Beijing’s intelligence apparatus.
Social Engineering Route
MI5 assessed that the Ministry of State Security was using websites like LinkedIn to build relationships with parliamentarians to collect sensitive information on the UK for strategic advantage. The fake headhunter profiles offered consulting opportunities while actually intending to lay groundwork for long-term relationships that could be exploited for intelligence collection.
Security Minister Jarvis told Parliament that targets extended beyond parliamentary staff to include economists, think tank consultants, and government officials. “This government’s first duty is to keep the country safe, which is why I’ve announced new action to give security officials the powers and tools they need to help disrupt and deter foreign espionage activity wherever they find it,” Jarvis stated.
The minister said the espionage alerts represent one of the main tools used to undermine spies’ ability to operate, with the public exposure intended to disrupt ongoing recruitment operations and warn potential targets.
Pattern of Hostile Activity
Jarvis noted the LinkedIn recruitment attempts build on a pattern of hostile activity from China, citing Beijing-linked actors targeting parliamentary emails in 2021 and attempted foreign interference activity by Christine Lee in 2022. Lee, a London-based lawyer, was accused by MI5 of facilitating covert donations to British parties and legislators on behalf of foreign nationals coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department.
The alert arrives weeks after prosecutors abruptly abandoned a case against two British men charged with spying on MPs for Beijing. Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, an academic, faced charges under the Official Secrets Act 1911 but prosecutors claimed the government’s evidence was missing a critical element.
That critical element was the government’s refusal to call China an “enemy” or “national security threat,” which prosecutors said meant they had no option but to collapse the case since the 1911 Act requires information passed on to be useful to an enemy.
New Counter-Espionage Action Plan
The government announced a comprehensive Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan to disrupt and deter state-sponsored spying. Intelligence services will deliver security briefings for political parties and issue new guidance to election candidates helping them recognize, resist, and report suspicious activity.
Authorities will work with professional networking sites to make them more hostile operating environments for spies, while new Elections Bill provisions will tighten rules on political donations. Jarvis added the government will continue taking further action against China-based actors involved in malicious cyber activity against the UK and allies.
The government committed £170 million to renew sovereign and encrypted technology that civil servants use to safeguard sensitive work. An additional £130 million will fund projects including building Counter Terrorism Policing’s ability to enforce the National Security Act and supporting the National Cyber Security Centre’s work with critical businesses to protect intellectual property.
Jarvis also informed Parliament that the government completed removal of surveillance equipment manufactured by companies subject to China’s National Intelligence Law from all sensitive sites operated worldwide by the British government.
“As a country with a long and proud history of trading around the world, it’s in our interests to continue to seek an economic relationship with China, but this government will always challenge countries whenever they undermine our democratic way of life,” Jarvis declared.
The National Security Act provides government power to prosecute those engaging in espionage activity, with offenses including obtaining protected information, assisting a foreign intelligence service, and obtaining material benefit from a foreign intelligence service. The government recently introduced the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill to help protect organizations from cyber threats posed by states like China.
