We here at TDB like to be first at pointing shit out, but in this never ending 24-7 news clusterfuck of a media environment we all live in, even we can slip up and miss something that should get more focus, so from time to time we’ll run Under the Radar News, things of note that escaped attention.
This week, MI5 & FBI warning over China.
MI6 & FBI warning over China:
Ummm, this seems a tad concerning…
China: MI5 and FBI heads warn of ‘immense’ threat
FBI director Christopher Wray said China was the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security” and had interfered in politics, including recent elections.
MI5 head Ken McCallum said his service had more than doubled its work against Chinese activity in the last three years and would be doubling it again.
MI5 is now running seven times as many investigations related to activities of the Chinese Communist Party compared to 2018, he added.
The FBI’s Wray warned that if China was to forcibly take Taiwan it would “represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen”.
The first ever joint public appearance by the two directors came at MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London.
McCallum also said the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party was “game-changing”, while Wray called it “immense” and “breath-taking”.
Wray warned the audience – which included chief executives of businesses and senior figures from universities – that the Chinese government was “set on stealing your technology” using a range of tools.
He said it posed “an even more serious threat to western businesses than even many sophisticated businesspeople realised”. He cited cases in which people linked to Chinese companies out in rural America had been digging up genetically modified seeds which would have cost them billions of dollars and nearly a decade to develop themselves.
He also said China deployed cyber espionage to “cheat and steal on a massive scale”, with a hacking programme larger than that of every other major country combined.
The MI5 head said intelligence about cyber threats had been shared with 37 countries and that in May a sophisticated threat against aerospace had been disrupted.
Both men warned that China was drawing lessons from the Russian invasion of Ukraine
…yes, yes, yes, I know, I know, I know, the MI6 & FBI, what else would the mouthpieces of the American Military Industrial Complex say, but they are still credible voices of domestic espionage and even if we were to only believe half of what is being accused, that represents a never ending front where China is attempting to actively use its vast size to constantly erode Western values and sovereignty, an accusation easily thrown at America and the UK of course.
The point still remains however that China is not benign.
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Yep, China has an age old history of having its way with the world. They built that little, wee wall to make it easier for them to menace the world. Just another day in tui-land.
Apparently said wall was built to keep marauding bandits out.
These days it’s the South China Seas militarily reinforced Islands doing the same job.
For us it’s AUKUS & Japan of course, keeping our China foe at bay, eh!
Oh well, I suppose that’s the end of all pour cheap stuff then.
Just remembered, they make everything there now, don’t they.
We’re buggered!
Hey Martyn.
Very generous of you to believe half of what the FBI and MI5 say.
Would that also apply to their credibility?
Considering they’re lying half the time, how do you decide which statements are worth your trust?
I’m also curious to know at what discount level you would swoop on believing Chinese and Russian secret services announcements, credibility?
Probably good to temper one’s thinking with a balance of everyone’s propaganda these days, don’t ya reckon?
China has been engaged in cyber espionage and stealing intellectual property for years.
This is not a good thing but why is it that we suddenly care now when we didn’t seem to before?
For perspective, Hussein’s gas attack against the Kurds was one of the rallying cries for war in 2003 yet the Halabja massacre took place in 1988.
The facts of China’s “wrong doing” have not changed so much as western foreign policy choices and public narrative.
tui ALL govts indulge in cyber warfare and industrial spying….it’s what security services pivoted to when ideology ended..blaming one is a bit black/kettle/pot
First we had a US presidents (Trump) kids running U.S foreign policy now a couple of unelected beat cops. This is not the progress you are looking for.
No, it isn’t concerning at all.
These secret police organizations are enemies of all humanity. Whatever scares them is good.
Forget espionage, here Chinese state interests just turn up with the checkbook. Remember Simon Bridges and his Asian valuation measurement system (Chinese being worth more than Indians)? Lets not forget our National MP from spy school that didn’t even conduct interviews in English. Cap it off with NZ Chinese language publications being censored by the Chinese mainland. If you were a Chinese espionage agent looking after NZ you would probably be worried about your own job security.
And they are saying that this is a new situation? So the CCP hasn’t tried anything at all to undermine their “imperialist” enemies until recently? Whatever the level of credibility of the speakers, they are still making a meal of what has been “business as usual” on both sides of the divide.. It wasn’t that long ago that communist China was openly labelled an enemy, and a threat to western security, and hegemony.. A little over thirty years ago if I remember correctly.. The hysteria surrounding China now, which is actually a rather late reaction to what has been ongoing, both points up the underlying agenda of the owners of our “free societies”, and the rank stupidity, and utter lack of foresight, that the Key government employed to shackle NZ’s economy to China in ways that have made extracting ourselves from thralldom before the Chinese finish developing their own baby food supply lines from within, just a “nice to have” dream.. NZ’s economy will tank when that happens, and we will be completely helpless to stop the firesale bargains Keys handlers will pick up in the aftermath.. The only reason I am here in NZ is because of a family emergency that trapped me here during the first lockdown.. The second I can gather the money to leave, I will. While NZ is still likely to keep reinstating the venal, self serving, and disloyal national party back into a position to flog off what’s left to sell, then there isn’t much point being here… I’d rather have a life in a foreign country than live like a serf in my own home.. Thanks uncle Johnny, you’ve succeeded brilliantly in destroying whatever positive future this country had for it’s people, and now we just wait for the new owners to pony up the dosh, so we can all settle back into our harness again.. We can’t even build enough houses to make up for the speculator lolly scramble uncle John gifted them, as the framing timber gets exported before the domestic market gats a look in.. Who would set up a situation where we can’t even build as quickly as we need to because we don’t even have first go at the building materials? People who couldn’t give a small, dried up nugget of hamster poo about their own people, or the viability of the country they were entrusted to administer.. I don’t think that even another “Savage Government” could fix the ruination now.. But hey, the party that Key owns will be back in the saddle next year, so we can look forward to some positively ecstatic media reaction to the continuation of the firesale… Even if they have to be the ones to strike the first match…