Britain’s security service MI5 published an “Espionage Alert” on Wednesday naming a Chinese organisation it says funds academic research on behalf of Beijing’s civilian intelligence agency, Hiru News reported.
MI5 said the China General Technology Research Institute (CGTRI) — sometimes rendered as the China Academy of General Technology — has “very strong ties” to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), and that more than 100 UK-based academics had contributed to projects it funded.
“MI5 has identified that the primary purpose of CGTRI is to fund academic research that directly improves MSS technical capability for espionage,” the alert said. It listed artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, covert communications systems and steganography among the fields involved, and said the activity “poses a threat to UK national security”.
MI5 said it was the first time the agency had independently published an alert publicly.
Warning of prosecution
The service said many academics and institutions would have engaged with the CGTRI in good faith, without knowing of its links to the MSS. Those who continue to do so, it said, now risk prosecution under Britain’s National Security Act, passed in 2023 to broaden powers against foreign espionage and hostile state activity.
Security Minister Dan Jarvis said he had written to every university leader in Britain instructing that staff end any relationship with the organisation.
“This alert exposes attempts by Chinese intelligence to covertly benefit from the expertise and research of our academics, undermining our national security, and that of our allies,” Jarvis said. “International partnerships are vital to ensure our universities and research institutes continue to thrive, but we will take robust action to defend against the threats we face.”
China’s embassy in London called the warning “entirely fabricated and constitutes malicious slander”, according to Al Jazeera.
Context
The alert lands in the middle of a British policy tension the reports both note. London has sought warmer trade relations with Beijing and approved plans for China to build its largest embassy in Europe in the British capital, while repeatedly warning about Chinese intelligence activity.
It follows a pattern of escalating public warnings rather than a single incident. MI5 director-general Ken McCallum said last year that Chinese spies posed a daily national security threat and were posting fake job advertisements to draw British professionals into handing over information. In November last year the service issued a separate alert to British lawmakers that Chinese agents were targeting them for information.
Not reported
Neither report names any of the academics or universities involved, says whether any institution has been investigated or charged, or states over what period the CGTRI funding ran. Neither gives the value of the grants, nor says whether any research output has been identified as having reached the MSS. No response from a named Chinese government official beyond the London embassy statement is recorded, and no UK university’s reply is reported.
