BBC:
When MPs, members of the House of Lords and their staff were warned about the threat from Chinese spies, in one office in Westminster, a quick check began.
Simon Whelband is a Conservative councillor and also works for the Conservative MP Neil O’Brien, who was sanctioned by China in 2021.
Simon went into his LinkedIn messages and there it was. A message from an account in the name of Shirly Shen sent some weeks earlier.
He hadn’t responded to the unsolicited message and reported it to Parliament’s security services. He was then advised to block the account.
The note comes across as pretty innocuous.
He said: “The message wasn’t written in very good English, it was a message to say there was a job opportunity and was I interested, and to get in touch if I was.
“I’ve worked around Parliament for about 10 years now so I’m kind of used to this.
“But if you were more junior, you don’t know what you’re looking for.
“You might think it’s a genuine offer that’s made to you on LinkedIn, they might accept.”
Whelband added that he thought it was becoming more common for those working in Parliament to be targeted by China.
“They have realised the way to get to Parliamentarians is through their staff… it’s deeply worrying,” he said.
And so, for the second time this autumn, Westminster is collectively wrestling with what to do about China.
The growing influence of this vast superpower is one of the two stand out global changes of the last 30 years, alongside the growth of the internet.
Some of the most acute challenges – or threats – from Beijing come when both of these mega-trends of the early 21st Century combine.
Senior figures in government are worried, but express their worry carefully in public. MPs outside of government are much more willing to be blunt.
Tuesday’s debate in the Commons on this was an eye opener. The security minister Dan Jarvis was both circumspect in his language, but warm and accepting of the wide range of concerns expressed by MPs of multiple parties.
