China is mounting ‘large-scale’ spying operations against UK, says MI6 chief

China is running “large scale” spying operations against the UK in a bid to distort public opinion and political decision making, the chief of MI6 has said.

Richard Moore called China “an authoritarian state with different values than ours” which exports technology that create a “web of authoritarian control around the world”.

He warned on Tuesday China and Russia are racing to master artificial intelligence in a way that could revolutionise geopolitics over the next decade.

The world’s spies, from Langley and London to Moscow and Beijing, are trying to grapple with seismic advances in technology that are challenging traditional human-led spying operations which have dominated for thousands of years.

Mr Moore - who rarely surfaces for speeches - said quantum engineering, engineered biology, vast troves of data and advances in computer power posed a threat that needed to be addressed by the West.

“Our adversaries are pouring money and ambition into mastering artificial intelligence, quantum computing and synthetic biology, because they know that mastering these technologies will give them leverage,” he said.

“As a society, we have yet to internalise this stark fact and its potential impact on global geopolitics. But it is a white-hot focus for MI6,” he added.

MI6 Chief Richard Moore speech
Mr Moore said Britain’s intelligence agencies must open up to cooperation with the global tech sector if they are to counter the rising cyber threats from hostile states, criminals and terrorists
PA

Chinese and Russian intelligence agencies are of particular concern to spies of the West, having rushed to harness the power of a range of sophisticated technologies.

These countries along with Iran and international terrorism make up the “big four” security issues confronting Britain’s spies, according to Mr Moore.

Western intelligence agencies fear Beijing could within decades dominate all of the key emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and genetics.

China’s economic and military rise over the past 40 years is considered to be one of the most significant geopolitical events of recent times, alongside the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union which ended the Cold War.

MI6, depicted by novelists as the employer of some of the most memorable fictional spies from John le Carre’s George Smiley to Ian Fleming’s James Bond, operates overseas and is tasked with defending Britain and its interests.

Mr Moore said the service would have to change to harness new technologies.

“We cannot hope to replicate the global tech industry, so we must tap into it,” he will say.

“We must become more open, to stay secret.”

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