The U.S. and its “Five Eyes” intelligence partners issued a joint statement Wednesday warning that Chinese military intelligence is using LinkedIn and other professional social media sites to recruit people with access to classified information and obtain it from them.
The notice was drafted by the FBI, Britain’s MI5 and the domestic intelligence agencies of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It is the group’s first joint public warning on the issue. The heads of Five Eyes had previously issued a joint statement on the issue of intellectual property theft in October 2023.
In the latest warning, the agencies wrote, “These actors use an aggressive online recruitment strategy whereby intelligence officers or their affiliates pose as employees of private consultancies, think tanks or human resources firms, and place online job advertisements for foreign policy and defence analysts.” The report also alleges that Chinese intelligence officials have commissioned reports from those they recruit, creating the impression that the reports will be for think tanks or similar research organizations.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in London rejected the allegations on Thursday, saying the allegation is “entirely fabricated and constitutes malicious slander,” while Chinese Foreign Minister spokesman Mao Ning said that “for such an organization to accuse China of being a ‘spy threat’ is in itself ironic.”
The report comes after President Trump met Xi Jinping in China last month and UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper visited this week.
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