Britain’s domestic intelligence agency warned on Tuesday that China has been using headhunters on LinkedIn and other covert operatives in an effort to recruit and compromise lawmakers and parliamentary staff members.
The warning came just two months after a political scandal erupted in Britain over the collapse of an espionage case against a parliamentary researcher and a teacher accused of funneling sensitive information to Beijing.
Tuesday’s espionage alert from the agency, MI5, warned lawmakers that the Chinese foreign intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security, had been secretly targeting members of Parliament, government staff members, political consultants, economists and think tank employees.
“China is attempting to recruit and cultivate individuals with access to sensitive information about parliament and the U.K. government,” Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said in a statement in the House of Commons.
“This activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs,” he said, adding that the British government “will take all necessary measures to protect our national interest, our citizens and our democratic way of life.”
The alert, which was seen by The New York Times, identified two headhunters — Amanda Qiu, the chief executive of BP-YR Executive Search, a company in Beijing, and Shirly Shen of Internship Union, based in Hong Kong — as two “civilian recruitment headhunters” that it said had been used by the Ministry of State Security to target people in Britain.
Neither Ms. Qui or Ms. Shen immediately responded to requests for comment sent on LinkedIn.
“The headhunters are typically China-based individuals who make initial contact with a target before referring them to an officer,” the MI5 alert said.
The alert said that the headhunters can use fake or legitimate companies to hide their work with the Chinese intelligence services. “Using these companies they will either engage in person or using online platforms such as LinkedIn,” it said. “They often maintain some form of cover for the entire relationship.”
It added that targets would “typically be approached to work as freelance consultants authoring geopolitical reports.” Chinese intelligence officers had “a low threshold for what information is considered to be of value,” it said, but “individual pieces of information fit into a wider collection effort.”
A statement posted to the website of the Chinese Embassy in London on Tuesday said: “These claims by the U.K. side are pure fabrication and malicious slander. We strongly condemn such despicable moves of the U.K. side and have lodged stern representations with them.”
Last month, Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, said in a speech that China was engaging in cyberespionage and the theft of advanced secrets, and had conducted “efforts to interfere covertly in U.K. public life.”
The alert sent to members of Parliament on Tuesday had the potential to revive the political debate over the case dropped in September. The decision not to bring the case to trial roiled politics in London for weeks.
Senior members of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government have repeatedly said that it was the decision of Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, to drop the case against Christopher Cash, a parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a teacher. Mr. Parkinson said that the government’s unwillingness to call China a threat at the time the pair were detained meant he could not charge them under the Official Secrets Act.
But Mr. Starmer’s critics claimed that the prime minister and his aides had not done enough to help prosecutors make the case against Mr. Cash and Mr. Berry. That, they said, reflected the Labour government’s desire to maintain trade links with China.
In his statement in Parliament, Mr. Jarvis did not say how successful the Chinese spies had been in penetrating the parliamentary networks or gaining access to sensitive information. But he vowed on behalf of the government to aggressively fight Chinese spying efforts.
“We will not hesitate to hold all state actors to account,” he said.
He also announced that the government would take several steps to try to counter China’s efforts to spy on government officials and private businesses across the country.
He said the government would spend 170 million pounds, or about $230 million, to upgrade the computer systems in Parliament and throughout government to better strengthen the security of the networks.
British officials will also do more to ensure the reliability of elections in Britain and work with companies that produce advanced technology, Mr. Jarvis said. He also said that government ministers would meet with top university officials to help protect universities against efforts by the Chinese government to covertly influence what is taught in classes across the country.
Michael D. Shear is a senior Times correspondent covering British politics and culture, and diplomacy around the world.
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