In a joint appearance in London, the US and UK intelligence chiefs urged companies to be much more cautious about China. FBI Director Christopher Wray said Beijing was using “elaborate shell games” to cover up its espionage and was even exploiting Spacs. “The Chinese government is an even more serious threat to Western business than even many sophisticated business people realise,” Wray told business leaders at an event with his MI5 counterpart Ken McCallum. “I want to encourage you to take the long view as you measure the threat.” The intelligence chiefs were holding the first public event between the two agencies, a move Wray said underscored the need to address Beijing’s expanding spying challenge. McCallum said MI5 had increased its China-related investigations sevenfold since 2018, had doubled its capacity to deal with them in the past three years and would likely double capacity again in the next “handful of years”. Wray said FBI field offices in the US opened an investigation into Chinese espionage on average every 12 hours. “We’re not crying wolf,” McCallum said. “China is the game-changing threat in the sense that it permeates so many aspects of our national life.” Wray said Beijing is using “every tool” at its disposal to steal Western technology in an effort to ultimately undermine non-Chinese businesses and dominate their markets – even stealing genetically modified seeds from US farmland . He added that the Ministry of State Security, which oversees Chinese espionage efforts abroad, houses Western companies it wanted to “loot” to help obtain corporate secrets. Meanwhile, assessing risks by Chinese counterparts was becoming more difficult because Beijing was restricting access to the data needed for due diligence, he said. Both intelligence chiefs stressed that China often employed people not directly connected to its intelligence services to target Western companies – a group Wray called “co-optees”. They said companies needed to become more attuned to the fact that their dealings with Chinese companies may have links to Beijing’s intelligence services, which McCallum described as “covert manipulation”. “When dealing with a Chinese company, know that you are also dealing with the Chinese government — namely the MSS and the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] — also, almost like silent partners,” Ray said in his speech. The two intelligence chiefs urged the companies to step up cooperation with the FBI and MI5, singling out China’s ability to conduct large-scale espionage across a huge range of activities and to take the long view, courting budding politicians. McCallum and Wray insisted that companies should be more cautious, but not necessarily disengage with China. “The goal here is not to cut ourselves off from China. We want a UK that is both connected and resilient,” said McCallum. He said the presence of 150,000 Chinese students studying at UK universities is “good for them and good for us”. But he said the audit led to the departure of 50 of those with military ties.

Wray also said businesses should think more about the implications of China’s threat to Taiwan after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pointing out that Western companies had been caught up in sanctions against Moscow and economic disruption. “There were a lot of Western companies that still had their fingers in that door when it slammed shut,” he said. “If China invades Taiwan, we could see the same thing again, on a much larger scale. Just like in Russia, Western investments built up over years could become hostages.” The Chinese embassy in Washington rejected Wray and McCallum’s claims. “Some US politicians tarnish China’s image and portray China as a threat with false accusations,” an embassy spokesman said. “We strongly oppose their comments.”