How China is spying on the West – from cyber warfare and industrial espionage to courting US and British politicians and setting up ‘police stations’ abroad

The arrest of an alleged Chinese spy at the heart of the British government has sent shockwaves through the West, raising urgent questions about Beijing’s intelligence gathering practices.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confronted Chinese Premier Li Qiang over his country’s “unacceptable” interference in British democracy, with MPs saying it marks an “escalation” of hostilities by the superpower.

This is not the first time that China has been condemned for its alleged use of spies. The incident follows allegations earlier this year that China flew a surveillance balloon over the United States, sparking a diplomatic row.

A wide range of Chinese espionage techniques have been documented over the years, with spies arrested and companies punished for their alleged role.

Here, MailOnline looks at some of the ways China has worked to spy on the West in recent years.

Cyber ​​war

The United States warned in 2022 that the Asian giant represents “the broadest, most active and persistent cyberespionage threat” to its government and the private sector.

China has become adept at hacking rival countries’ digital systems to collect trade secrets, according to researchers and Western intelligence officials.

In 2021, the United States, NATO and other allies said China had engaged “contract hackers” to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft’s email systems, giving state security agents access to sensitive information.

Chinese spies have also hacked the U.S. Energy Department, utilities, telecommunications companies and universities, according to U.S. government statements and media reports.

The United States also has its own ways of spying on China, using surveillance and interception techniques and networks of informants.

Tech fears

In the technology sector, there are concerns that Chinese state-owned companies would be obliged to share information with their government.

In 2019, the US Department of Justice accused technology giant Huawei of conspiring to steal US trade secrets, among other things.

Washington has banned the company from supplying US government systems and has strongly discouraged use of its equipment in the private sector over concerns it could be compromised.

Huawei denies the accusations.

Similar concerns over TikTok, developed by China’s ByteDance, have been the subject of heated debate in the West – with some lawmakers calling for an outright ban on the app over data security fears.

ByteDance was accused last year of giving members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) access to the data of Hong Kong civil rights activists, allegations the company refuted as “baseless.”

Earlier this year it was announced that TikTok would be blocked from ‘all parliamentary apparatus and the wider parliamentary network’, to ensure cyber security.

Industrial and military espionage

According to experts, US lawmakers and media reports, Beijing has used Chinese citizens abroad to gather intelligence and steal sensitive technology.

One of the most high-profile cases was that of Ji Chaoqun, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in the US in January for sharing information about possible recruitment targets with Chinese intelligence.

Ji was accused of providing information on eight people to the Jiangsu Province Security Ministry, an intelligence unit accused of involvement in the theft of US trade secrets.

Last year, a US court sentenced a Chinese intelligence officer to 20 years in prison for stealing technology from US and French aerospace companies.

The man, named Xu Yanjun, was found guilty of playing a leading role in a five-year, Chinese state-backed scheme to steal commercial secrets from GE Aviation, one of the world’s leading aircraft engine manufacturers, and the French Safran Group.

In 2020, a US court jailed Raytheon engineer Wei Sun – a Chinese national and naturalized US citizen – for bringing sensitive information about a US missile system to China on a company laptop.

Spying on politicians

Chinese agents are said to have courted political, social and business elites in Britain and the United States to gather information that could be useful to the CCP.

The alleged Chinese spy in Westminster had contacts with Conservative MPs while working as a parliamentary researcher and has worked on international policy, including relations with Beijing, according to the Sunday Times.

American news website Axios conducted an investigation in 2020 alleging that a Chinese student enrolled at a California university had developed ties to a series of American politicians under the auspices of Beijing’s top civilian spy agency.

The student, a Chinese national named Christine Fang or Fang Fang, used campaign finance, developed friendships and even started sexual relationships between 2011 and 2015 to target rising politicians, the report said.

It alleged that Fang came close to political power through fundraising, extensive networking, personal charisma and romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, citing former U.S. intelligence officials as sources.

Another technique used by Chinese operatives is touting inside information about the Communist Party’s opaque inner workings and hindering access to top leaders to lure high-profile Western targets, researchers say.

The goal was to “mislead world leaders about (Beijing’s) ambitions” and make them believe that “China would rise peacefully – perhaps even democratically,” author Alex Joske wrote in his book “Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World’.

Beijing has also pressured overseas Chinese communities and media organizations to support its policies toward Taiwan and silence criticism of the crackdown in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

‘Police stations’

Beijing is said to have set up more than a hundred so-called “police stations” abroad, which are used to monitor Chinese citizens in exile, according to a report shared with CNN.

In September 2022, Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders said China had set up 54 overseas “police stations” around the world, ostensibly to target critics of the Communist Party.

According to reports, methods may include intimidation and even forced repatriation.

Beijing has denied the claims.

In November, the Netherlands ordered China to close two ‘police stations’ there.

A month later, the Czech Republic said China had closed two such centers in Prague.