Leadership1 publisher3 min readPublished
MI5's alert on a Chinese front company turns university due diligence into a legal test
MI5 has named the China General Technology Research Institute, which paid 100 or more UK academics, as a front for Chinese state security. Universities and academics that keep working with it could now face prosecution under the National Security Act 2023.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
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What happened
- The research CGTRI funded covered AI, cybersecurity, covert communications and steganography, the hiding of data inside images posted online.
- MI5 believes it has clear evidence that sensitive information was passed back to Chinese intelligence.
- Besides research money, some UK-based academics also received honours from the Chinese side, according to the Guardian.
- Security minister Dan Jarvis has written to every university vice-chancellor asking them to help staff end all arrangements with CGTRI.
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Why it matters
- exposure Sections 3 and 17 reach individual staff and researchers as well as institutions, so a university's exit plan has to cover each academic who holds CGTRI money or recognition.
- cost Establishing the ultimate funder of every research collaboration with a Chinese institution becomes standing work for research offices, long after the CGTRI contracts are closed.
- precedent Naming one front publicly let MI5 put an entire sector on notice with a single document, and it can use the same method on other funders without building individual cases.
The legal case rests on two passages of the alert. Under section 3, it says, an offence is committed if a person "engages in conduct that is likely to materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out UK-related activities" and "knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know" that the conduct is likely to do so [13]. The same document states: "Through this espionage alert, MI5 has placed the fact that CGTRI has very strong ties to MSS in the public domain." [16] The second passage answers the knowledge test in the first. In my view, an institution that keeps a CGTRI arrangement after Wednesday's alert [1] will struggle to argue it did not know.
The alert draws its line at the date of publication. "Many academic institutions and individuals will to date have engaged with CGTRI in good faith given CGTRI's obfuscated links to MSS," it said [9]. The prosecution warning covers continued collaboration [4]. Staff are told to know the section 3 offence, and section 17 on obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service, "going forward" [12]. MI5 issued the section on "potential criminal consequences" after consulting the Crown Prosecution Service [11].
The board-deck version fits on one line: exit CGTRI. It is incomplete in two places. The organisation is also known as the China Academy of General Technology [2], so a contract screen built on one name misses the other. The second gap is wider. MI5 advised academics "to establish the ultimate funding source when conducting any research collaboration with Chinese institutions, to ensure CGTRI is not involved" [10].
A research director could fairly reply that MI5 itself calls the links obfuscated [9], so no amount of paperwork would have exposed CGTRI. That holds for the past, and holds less well now that MI5 has named the entity and said what to check. Successive British governments courted Chinese investment and encouraged cooperation [19], so the checks now fall on partnerships that official policy once encouraged. The trade-off is research-office time, plus some partnerships that stall under the checks, weighed against a knowledge question that stays open without them.
MI5 is direct about what CGTRI was for. "MI5 has identified that the primary purpose of CGTRI is to fund academic research that directly improves MSS technical capability for espionage," the alert said [8]. The Guardian understands MI5 believes Chinese intelligence gained access to British research on scraping social media [15]. The report does not say whether MI5 regards the honours some academics received as a material benefit under section 17 [7] [12].
How hard prosecutors will push is still open. Citing the scale of Chinese espionage against the UK, MI5 chose deterrence through a public alert over pursuing every case [14]. We do not know yet whether the CPS will bring a section 3 case against a researcher or an institution. The security minister, Dan Jarvis, said: "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." [18]
The decision this quarter is the review of ongoing and planned CGTRI work that MI5 asked for [10]. The consequence next quarter is the funding-source record each university will either hold or lack if the first case is brought.
What to watch
- Whether the Crown Prosecution Service brings any section 3 or section 17 charge connected to CGTRI funding.
- Whether universities disclose how many CGTRI arrangements they have ended after Dan Jarvis's letter to vice-chancellors.
- Whether MI5 issues further named espionage alerts on other research funders, widening the funding-source checks beyond CGTRI.