China has advanced faster in intelligence services than Western countries. Recently, events have been recorded proving that the Chinese Communist Party spies on other nations. But, in addition to obtaining information from government portals and institutions, the Chinese regime also seeks to obtain information from individuals, including those who are Chinese dissidents and are in exile.
It was not only the Chinese spy balloon, which flew over the United States for several days, or the recent arrests of alleged collaborators of the communist regime. A report by Nigel Inkster, former director of operations and intelligence at MI6, recalled in an article for The Spectator that TikTok acknowledged that some of its employees had been spying on American journalists. In that sense, Inkster explained, Chinese intelligence services mainly target the United States.
"The harvested data serves a variety of purposes. Stolen medical data, for example, is used for biomedical research – which almost certainly includes not just pharma-ceutical but biowarfare programmes. Huge amounts of foreign data are used to train Chinese AI large-language models," the report detailed.
Likewise, the journalistic work narrates how government services were hacked. He highlighted that China has been spying on other countries on a large scale for several years.
The country has deepened its cyber capabilities, while building on old-fashioned human intelligence operations. In the past, Chinese intelligence agencies tended to rely almost exclusively on ethnic Chinese agents from the 60 million-strong diaspora community worldwide. One such was Chi Mak, a naturalised US citizen working in the US defence sector, who was sentenced to 24 years’ imprisonment for attempting to pass to China details of a radar system used to protect military ships.
In addition, the report indicated that there are covert Chinese police stations in at least 50 countries, mostly democratic. "Officials insist these entities exist to assist Chinese nationals with a variety of bureaucratic procedures. But surely that is what the legitimate Chinese consulates are for? The reality is that these ‘police stations’ primarily exist to monitor and suppress anti-regime activity," Inskter detailed the Spectator piece.
And although it seems that democratic countries are unaware of these moves by the Chinese regime, the reality is that nations like the United States have warned about the situation. While efforts are being made in the country to ban TikTok, in April two people were arrested in the United Kingdom accused of spying for China.
They were Christopher Cash, 29, and Christopher Berry, 32. Both were accused of violating the Official Secrets Act by providing information or documents that could be useful to an enemy and harmful to the security of the country.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Cash was a parliamentary investigator who worked with senior officials in the Conservative Party, while Berry is an academic.
"By court order, Cash, a parliamentary investigator who worked with senior officials in the ruling Conservative Party, will not be able to enter Parliament or contact members of the House of Commons," the AP reported.
In Germany, there has also been warning about a wave of acts of espionage that would benefit China, according to the BBC. Likewise, it seems that China is less cautious when recruiting foreigners for intelligence work.
'China is demonstrating a higher degree of sophistication'
Meanwhile, in March, the Intelligence Community reported that the Chinese regime used TikTok to influence the midterm elections. According to a report published by the agency, TikTok accounts run by the propaganda arm of the People's Republic of China attempted to influence candidates from both political parties during the electoral process.
"China is demonstrating a higher degree of sophistication in its influence activity, including experimenting with generative AI. TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022," the report explained.
The report also warns that China could also try to influence this year's presidential elections in the United States. The report indicates that the Chinese regime's strategy will be to divide American society. In that sense, it indicated that Chinese officials have increased their capabilities to carry out covert influence operations and spread misinformation.
