JAKARTA - The heads of the FBI and Britain's domestic security services are sharing platforms for the first time to issue dire warnings about the threat posed by Chinese government espionage operations.
As reported by BBC News, FBI Director Christopher Wray and MI5 Director General Ken McCallum spoke at a joint event at MI5's London headquarters in front of an audience that included business CEOs and senior figures from the university, speaking about it.
"The Chinese government will steal your technology, whatever gets your industry moving, and use it to undermine your business and dominate your market," Wray said in a speech quoted by the Wall Street Journal. The FBI director added that the benefits of keeping a technology secret are sometimes greater than accessing the Chinese market.
“Maintaining a technological edge can do more to increase company value than partnering with a Chinese company to sell into that huge Chinese market, only to find the Chinese government and your partners stealing and copying your innovations,” Wray said. He added that it represented an even more serious threat to western businesses than many high-tech businesses realized.
In their speeches, the two accused the Chinese government of engaging in a "coordinated campaign" to gain access to critical technology, and to "cheat and steal on a large scale."
They added that the Chinese government's hacking program dwarfs every major country, and has a global network of intelligence operations. The threat means that MI5 is carrying out seven times as many investigations into Chinese activity as it was four years ago. Meanwhile the FBI opens about two new counter-intelligence investigations every day.
"Today is the first time the heads of the FBI and MI5 have shared a public platform," said McCallum of MI5, as quoted by The Verge. "We're doing it to send the clearest signal we can about a great common challenge: China."
He added that the threat was "real and urgent" and that it could be "the most game-changing challenge we face."
In terms of a specific example, McCallum of MI5 cites the case of a British aviation expert who was offered a job by a company that was actually a cover for Chinese intelligence officers seeking technical information about military aircraft.
Another engineering firm was close to striking a deal with a Chinese firm, before seeing its technology taken and the deal scrapped. The incident forced the company into bankruptcy.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, denied the allegations, telling the Associated Press in a statement that the country's government "firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks" and "will never encourage, support, or condone." " they.
The Chinese government maintains that it does not interfere in the affairs of other countries, but will defend itself against cyber attacks. The statement criticized US politicians for tarnishing China's image and painting China as a threat with false accusations.
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