July Brief: China’s Hidden Hand? Recent Reports of Chinese Influence in the Western World

China’s Hidden Hand? Recent Reports of Chinese Influence in the Western World

Think-tankers, staffers to members of parliament, ex-members of the armed forces, and students: the first half of this year has been replete with stories—some lurid, others terse—of individuals close to the heart of Western governments and civil society being charged with collusion with, infiltration on the behalf of, or even espionage for the benefit of, the People’s Republic of China.

In the United Kingdom, two men who operated a think-tank closely associated with the Conservative Party and prominent members of the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Select Committee were charged under the Official Secrets Act in April, accused of ‘giving articles, notes, documents or information’ to a foreign state understood to be the PRC. In May, another three appeared in court charged with assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service in Britain. Among them was a dual Chinese and British national who was a Border Force officer and a special constable with the City of London Police, while another—later found dead in unexplained circumstances—was a former Royal Marine.

In Germany, an aide to a prominent Member of the European Parliament from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was arrested in April, accused of passing information about parliamentary discussions to China. This came hot on the heels of a Financial Times investigation which alleged that a far-right Belgian politician had secretly been a Chinese intelligence asset for more than three years. Sweden, in the same month, expelled a Chinese journalist of over 20 years’ residency over national security fears. Growing attention paid to the influence of the media and its potential to undermine national security interests undoubtedly motivated action taken against social media giant TikTok in the US.

Other reports from the academic realm have also come through, with the University of Florida banning a Chinese student, president of the local Chinese Students and Scholars Association, alleged to have been involved in a scheme to smuggle highly purified drugs and toxins to China. Information obtained by UK-China Transparency, a think-tank working to improve the quality of public information on the relationship between the UK and China, showed that a mooted partnership between the Data Science Institute at Imperial College London—then led by Chinese national Professor Guo Yike (who has since become Provost of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, though he appears to retain his affiliation)—would have allowed access to British AI technology for potential use in ‘smart military bases’.

We cannot, of course, be sure if the perceived uptick in reported concerns represents an increase in the underlying activity, or the increase in the detection of such activity. With the deterioration in the geopolitical relationship between China and the West over the past decade, it may be the case that the broader political environment has precipitated a refocussing of priorities. We must also be careful to avoid immature and unprofessional suppositions which would tend to create unfortunate campaigns which would attract backlash. But we cannot continue like this: and to be forewarned is to be forearmed.