Overview
- An MI5 espionage alert circulated by Speaker Lindsay Hoyle warns that China’s Ministry of State Security is using professional networking sites to cultivate contacts in Westminster and wider policy networks.
- Two LinkedIn profiles — Amanda Qiu of BR-YR Executive Search and Shirly Shen of Internship Union — are named as fronts reaching out at scale on behalf of Chinese intelligence.
- The alert details methods including false personas, cover companies posing as headhunters, lucrative fees, all‑expenses‑paid trips to China, and payments via cash or cryptocurrency.
- Security Minister Dan Jarvis announced measures including tougher donation risk assessments, enhanced Electoral Commission enforcement powers, protective campaigns and targeted briefings for parties and candidates, a universities security push, and £170 million to upgrade encrypted government technology.
- The Chinese embassy in London rejected the claims as “pure fabrication,” as the warning lands after prosecutors dropped a high-profile China spying case, intensifying debate over counter‑interference powers.