cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6404635

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Britain faces a “silent vulnerability” from Chinese microchips embedded in growing numbers of everyday appliances and cars, a Labour MP has warned.

The reliance on Chinese components for remote-controlled appliances created the risk that vital household technology could be disabled by China, according to Graeme Downie, who chairs the Coalition on Secure Technology campaign group.

Downie argued it was not a theoretical risk but a “real vulnerability in the systems that power our homes, hospitals and national infrastructure” and said ministers must act to reduce the country’s reliance on Chinese microchips by investing in alternatives manufactured in the UK or in allied countries.

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The microchips transmit and receive information through computer networks, known as Chinese-made cellular IoT modules (CIMs). They enable real-time data transmission as well as remote control and predictive analytics. They have been described as “gateways to computers” and can be accessed by their manufacturer at any time.

Research by the Coalition on Secure Technology found that two thirds of all CIMs were supplied by a handful of Chinese firms: the Shanghai-based Quectel and, in Shenzhen, a city in southeast China often referred to as the country’s Silicon Valley, Kaifa Technology and Fibocom.

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Chinese companies are subject to strict regulatory requirements that compel them to act on instructions from the ruling Chinese Communist Party and state authorities. This is particularly the case for issues deemed important to national security, prompting concerns that embedding Chinese-manufactured devices in so much of Britain’s technology could hand Beijing the capacity to cause widespread disruption by disabling devices or entire networks. While the devices cannot be used to hack into systems remotely, they can be disabled and used to collect data.

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Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, and Charles Parton, a veteran diplomat, have warned that the dominance of Chinese companies in the IoT industry could allow Beijing to switch off Britain’s traffic lights and “immobilise London”.

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Then PM wrote on note from aide in 2005 that case ‘must not’ be dealt with in civil court, archives reveal

Leader of Britain’s medics warned the NHS ‘could quite easily fall over’ due to exodus

The chief legal counsel for the Free Speech Union in the UK was approached three times by accounts claiming to be researchers, but something seemed suspicious.

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[Bryn Harris'] name is associated with the Free Speech Union's [FSU’s] submissions to government on higher education legislation, passed in 2023, to strengthen legal protections for free speech and academic freedom across universities. It was intended to lessen the influence of Confucius institutes, Beijing-funded programmes that have been used for academic interference and to control the narrative around China at UK campuses.

He enlisted the help of UK-China Transparency (UKCT), a charity that researches the ties between Britain and China and focuses on the work of the communist party.

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Harris had first been contacted by a researcher called Lala Chen in June, another in July who called herself Ailin, and then a third woman called Emily in October.

UKCT arranged a technical analysis, which established that while the trio purported to work from the US, they were in the Asia-Pacific region. One used the photographs of a well known Korean actress, and another used an avatar from a Facebook dating service.

Harris suspected he was the target of a “China capture” campaign. It comes after MI5 issued a recent alert to MPs and peers that they were being targeted for information by Chinese intelligence agents. The Security Service identified two Linkedin profiles, used by Chinese spies, purporting to be “civilian recruitment headhunters” and targeting politicians to solicit insights and secrets.

MI5 also warned that Chinese spies were creating fake job adverts to try and lure government staff, academics, think tank employees and private defence contractors into handing over information. Thousands of suspicious job adverts have been posted to online job platforms “with more appearing daily”, according to the National Protective Security Authority, a branch of MI5.

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The targeting was not particularly sophisticated, Whitehall sources said, acknowledging that Chinese agents were sending out thousands of approaches and “kissing a lot of frogs”, but only needed one person to be lured in to consider the technique a win.

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While Harris was suspicious of the approaches immediately, he said he wanted to raise further awareness so that other professionals would be wary of similar approaches and job offers.

Sam Dunning, the director of UKCT, said it had also had repeated hostile cyber phishing attempts including one involving the impersonation of one of its advisers.

He said UK scientists were also receiving frequent research collaboration and job offers.

“It is remarkable that British citizens going about their lives should receive approaches of this kind. The strategy behind such approaches is exploitative, divisive and dishonest. We should ask ourselves: if this is what it is like now, then what does the future hold?”

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Addition:

Chinese spies are everywhere in UK. I’ve been followed to the pub -- [Archive link}

A dissident living in London reveals how agents have infiltrated British institutions, watching, following and feeding information back home

Exhibition of design flops should suit British sense of humour, says its founder, but also shows failure is a part of learning

Fears for transparency and governance after closure of public log meant to curb ‘abuses and excess’ in boardrooms

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The university’s joint venture campus in China maintains partnerships and close links with entities sanctioned by Britain, the US, EU and others for supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and assisting China’s military modernisation and human rights violations, an investigation by the Australian Strategic Research Institute (ASPI) has found.

The previously unreported links to sanctions highlight the risks posed by foreign science, technology and academic partnerships in China in a period of heightened geopolitical rivalry, intensifying technological competition and deepening China-Russia cooperation. The joint venture campus’s partnerships cover a range of areas but centre on critical technologies, many with both military and civilian applications.

These partnerships include a new China-Russia cooperation centre whose Russian co-director is affiliated with a sanctioned Russian government agency; a formal new initiative with a leading Chinese government supercomputing centre that was placed on the US federal entity list in 2021 for involvement in China’s military modernisation efforts; and a chips school co-founded by a US-sanctioned Chinese government semiconductor research institute. Top staff in China have said the joint campus aims to design and manufacture its own semiconductors.

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The joint venture campus, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), was established in 2006 by the University of Liverpool and its partner institution, Xi’an Jiaotong University, a leading Chinese defence university that has supplied the Rocket Force of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and is supervised by China’s defence-industry ministry. Located in Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu province, XJTLU is the largest foreign joint venture university in China and one of many such joint campuses and institutes that have been formed in China with US, European, British, Australian and other foreign partners in recent decades.

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The University of Liverpool is one of Britain’s top research universities. It is a member of the country’s prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive universities and receives defence, security and intelligence funding from Western governments. In September 2024, for example, the defence ministers of the US, Britain and Australia announced in an official AUKUS communique that the University of Liverpool was an inaugural winner of the AUKUS Electronic Warfare Innovation Prize Challenge.

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XJTLU has become a research powerhouse, with around 25,000 students and 1,000 academic staff members. It houses several provincial and municipal key research institutes, including a national supercomputing centre, a robotics research institute, and an advanced semiconductor research institute that partners with smart-city company China Huaxin.

In 2024, XJTLU received funding from the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology for a research project called ‘Deep Learning-based Adversarial Sample Defense Technology for Communication Signal Modulation Recognition’. In 2025, an XJTLU research team set a new global record in an international competition in quantum-resistant cryptography. Researchers from the University of Liverpool also collaborate with XJTLU researchers on topics such as radar and autonomous driving.

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In April 2025, XJTLU launched a research partnership with the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, one of seven Chinese supercomputing groups added to the US federal entity list in 2021 due to their involvement in China’s military modernisation efforts.

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XJTLU’s School of CHIPS, which focuses on research and development for advanced computing chips, was co-founded in 2019 by a Chinese government research institute, the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, that was placed on the US federal entity list in 2024 for acting against US national security and foreign policy interests. The dean of the XJTLU School of CHIPS, Wei Chen, said in 2024 his goal was for XJTLU to design and manufacture its own semiconductors.

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Sugon, a Chinese supercomputer manufacturer that co-established XJTLU’s School of AI and Advanced Computing in 2018, was added to the US federal entity list in 2019 due to the ‘publicly acknowledged’ military end uses of its high-performance computers.

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XJTLU also hosts a joint lab with iFlytek, a Chinese technology company added to the US federal entity list in 2019 for its role in the Chinese government’s high-tech surveillance regime targeting Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.

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The University of Liverpool website, which has a dedicated page for the XJTLU partnership and related news, does not mention the China-Russia centre, XJTLU’s joint lab with iFlytek, XJTLU’s new partnership with the supercomputing centre in Wuxi, or the school’s aspirations to make its own semiconductors in China.

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Britain itself has a range of sanctions targeting Russia, including some that prohibit the provision of professional and business services ‘to a person connected with Russia’ and which apply to ‘any UK persons anywhere.’ The British government also placed research and innovation sanctions on Russia in 2022. This included pausing British public funds being spent on projects ‘with a Russian dimension’ and ceasing collaborative projects with Russia. At that time the British government also commissioned an assessment to ‘isolate and freeze activities which benefit the Russian regime’.

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In addition to its success in winning an inaugural AUKUS electronic-warfare innovation prize, the University of Liverpool has active grants from the European Commission and US government, including grants from the US Air Force and FBI.

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The XJTLU China-Russia centre’s Russian co-director, Artem Semenov, is an adviser to the Moscow regional government and a member of the public advisory council of Rossotrudnichestvo, a humanitarian and cultural agency under the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The EU sanctioned Rossotrudnichestvo in 2022, describing it as ‘the main state agency projecting the Kremlin’s soft power and hybrid influence,’ adding that it acted as an ‘umbrella organization for a network of Russian compatriots and agents of influence, and it funds various public diplomacy and propaganda projects, consolidating the activities of pro-Russian players and disseminating the Kremlin’s narratives.’

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A former Russian senator and current adviser to the Moscow regional government, Olga Zabralova, led the Russian government delegation that attended the centre’s launch. Zabralova is sanctioned by Britain, the US, the EU, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand and Monaco. She was a member of the Russian Federation Council that ratified the government’s decision to annex parts of occupied Ukraine. XJTLU hosted Zabralova and her delegation at X-Bar, the student activity and recreation centre.

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In a written response to questions from ASPI, a University of Liverpool spokesperson said, ‘The University of Liverpool has no involvement in XJTLU’s Centre for China-Russia Humanitarian Cooperation and Development, nor with the companies mentioned ...’

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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44389052

UK's Secret Intelligence Service MI6 is right to warn about Russia’s campaign of petty sabotage against the West. The goal is to disrupt and distract.

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Three Bulgarians [painting] red hands on Paris’s Holocaust Memorial ... An arson attack on an Ikea store in Vilnius, vandalising phone towers in Sweden and hacking the Czech railway operator, all in the past 12 months. Moscow has unleashed its intelligence agencies to carry out what seem petty incidents of sabotage. The International Institute for Strategic Studies has recorded at least 67 such incidents since 2022 in countries all over Europe thought to be linked to Russia.

Although attribution is often difficult, and some incidents will have nothing to do with Russia, it is clear that Putin’s regime is conducting a campaign of disruption and destruction in Europe. [UK's Spy chief Blaise] Metreweli called this “export of chaos” ... to divide, distract and dismay the West.

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There has been something of a shift in Russia’s campaign in recent years. In the past, the focus was on disinformation and amplifying disruptive political messages. Unlike the USSR, Putin’s Russia is essentially post-ideological. It can thus be all things to all people, and promote every useful message — from hard-right migrant alarmism to hard-left anticapitalism; regional secessionism to blood and soil nationalism; Black Lives Matter to the National Rifle Association.

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Sometimes, there are clear practical benefits for Moscow, such as the placing of cameras along Polish railway lines on which aid to Ukraine flows. (The cameras were discovered by railway staff and six people were arrested in 2023.) In other cases, operations are still about heightening division in society: the red-hand graffiti in Paris, for example, was used by Russian disinformation outlets to paint France as a haven for antisemitism.

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Moscow’s goal now seems to be to start to make people feel that their country’s support for Ukraine affects them directly. A [UK intel] GCHQ analyst, for example, told me of apparent efforts to temporarily degrade internet bandwidth, noting that “it may sound trivial, but think of the annoyance if you can’t do your online banking, or the film you wanted to download takes hours buffering”.

No one will go to war because their train is delayed or their phone signal wobbly — but they might begin to think twice about supporting another country’s war if the toll of inconveniences begins to mount. It also contributes to another Kremlin (and, indeed, Chinese) talking point, that degenerate western democracies simply don’t work.

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One of the reasons it is so difficult to resist and prepare for these attacks is their very variety. In May 2024, a German arms factory was gutted in a blaze the authorities blamed on Russian agents. In July 2024, improvised explosives hidden inside electric massagers detonated in DHL logistics hubs in Germany, Poland and the UK. The next month, mysterious break-ins on military bases in Germany prompted fears that water supplies had been tainted.

On Christmas Day last year, an ageing tanker leaving a Russian port seems to have dragged its anchors across the Estlink 2 underwater power cable between Estonia and Finland, cutting it. Last month Polish railway lines were cut by a bomb, and in recent weeks, what were described as “military-style drones” shadowed President Zelensky’s jet as he flew to Dublin.

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This also highlights another virtue of this new strategy for the Kremlin: it encourages and mobilises our own paranoia. Many of the alleged “Russian drones” which shut down airports across Europe in the autumn turned out either to be nothing to do with Russia — or not even to be drones at all. Once people were on their guard, though, they began seeing drones everywhere, and risk-averse airport operators duly shut down flights as soon as a report came in .... A Polish diplomat put it starkly: “The Kremlin has learned that it cannot get Europe to like it, so it hopes to force concessions on us by making us fear it.”

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One striking characteristic of the attacks to date has been that they tend to come in waves, followed by periods of relative calm, with little real connection to the military or political situation. The concern in some intelligence circles is that this is still a campaign at its “beta testing” phase — that after each spate of attacks, the Russians regroup and consider the lessons.

“It’s when they think they know what works best,” one British security official speculated, “that we might see them ready for a serious, sustained challenge.”

Nor is it a challenge likely to end if and when there is peace in Ukraine. With the White House now seen as a potential partner, Russian propaganda has pivoted to seeing Europe as its main enemy given its continued support for Kyiv. We may well have to cope with such attacks as long as Putin is in the Kremlin.

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In many ways, the best, if less exciting response is to go back to how Europe coped with political terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s: foiling as many plots as possible, but accepting that some would inevitably succeed. The answer was — and is — not to let that panic us or force a change in policy: to keep calm and carry on.

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