MI5 warning puts UK academics still working with CGTRI within reach of espionage law

More than 100 UK-linked academics have contributed to projects funded by the Ministry of State Security via CGTRI, according to MI5.

UK academics have contributed to CGTRI-funded projects on topics including AI, cyber-security, covert communications systems and steganography, which means hiding a secret message or file inside an ordinary message or object.

In what the BBC called a highly unusual public alert, MI5 warned universities and academics that continuing ties with CGTRI could ultimately lead to criminal charges for aiding a foreign state.

MI5 said that in some cases the researchers would not be aware of the front company's role in their project.

The BBC report of the alert does not describe any investigation or charge and does not identify the universities, academics or projects involved.

Security minister Dan Jarvis said he had written to all university vice-chancellors to end relationships with CGTRI.

"This 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."

In June, MI5 and its partners in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand issued a joint warning that China's military intelligence services were targeting professional networking sites and online job platforms.

The BBC says the new UK-specific alert goes further than the June warning, revealing what MI5 says is a threat that has been growing within British academic institutions.

With CGTRI now publicly named, continued collaboration can no longer rest on the obfuscation MI5 cited to explain past good-faith engagement, which moves it toward the Act's ought-reasonably-to-have-known threshold.

Two of the named fields, covert communications systems and steganography, concern concealing messages or data, the kind of technical capability MI5 says CGTRI funding is meant to improve for MSS espionage.

Because the 2023 offence turns on what the individual ought reasonably to have known, an academic who continues a CGTRI project after the public alert carries personal exposure regardless of an institutional review.

The June Five Eyes warning and the CGTRI alert involve two different Chinese services using two channels against UK expertise: military intelligence via online job and networking platforms, and the MSS via research funded through a front.

MI5's stated aim is that MSS derive no further benefit; benefit already delivered by completed CGTRI-funded projects is not reversed by the review it requested.

MI5 says China General Technology Research Institute (CGTRI) is a front company working for China's intelligence and security services and has "very strong ties" to the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).

CGTRI is sometimes translated as the China Academy of General Technology (CAGT).

"MI5 has identified that the primary purpose of CGTRI is to fund academic research that directly improves MSS technical capability for espionage."

"This activity supports Ministry of State Security espionage, which poses a threat to UK national security."