UK tells universities to cut China institute ties over MI5 spy warning

The British government has asked universities across the UK to stop working with the China General Technology Research Institute after Britain’s security service said the organisation is a front for espionage.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said British academics should “end all arrangements” with the institute. MI5, the UK’s domestic intelligence agency, said more than 100 UK-linked academics had worked on projects secretly funded by Chinese intelligence through the organisation, including work on cyber security, artificial intelligence, covert communications systems and steganography, the practice of hiding messages.

MI5 said the institute has “very strong ties to the Chinese Ministry of State Security” and seeks to fund research that improves the Chinese state’s “technical capacity for espionage”.

Jarvis said the MI5 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”. He said he had written to university chiefs “to ensure they support their staff to end all arrangements with this company”, and added that collaborating with the research institute could breach the Security Act.

British intelligence officials have in recent years stepped up their warnings about espionage threats from China, the UK’s third-largest trading partner. A year ago, MI5 Director-General Ken McCallum said Chinese state actors present a security threat “every day”. In June, the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nations — the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada — warned that Chinese spies were using job websites to try to extract sensitive information from military and government personnel.

Libby Hackett, chief executive of the Russell Group of 24 research-intensive British universities, said the institutions “take national security responsibilities very seriously”. “The ground-breaking research that Russell Group universities produce, including in fields of strategic national importance, is an incredibly important asset for the UK,” she said. “ collaboration remains a crucial part of the picture, but we know our world-leading research strengths can make the UK a target for hostile actors.”

The government’s direction to universities follows an MI5 warning that Chinese intelligence has used the institute to gain access to British academic expertise, prompting ministers to call for all ties with it to be ended.

With PTI Inputs

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