As you read this, bear one thing in mind: If they did it to the Brits, they can do it to us - and probably are. On Tuesday, it was revealed that state-sponsored Chinese hackers (are there any other kind of Chinese hackers?) had cracked the personal communications of a number of high-level aides of senior British political figures.
State-sponsored Chinese hackers have been quietly breaking into the phones of senior British government officials for years—including close aides to recent prime ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak.
The Daily Telegraph reports that spies have “compromised senior members of the government, exposing their private communications to Beijing.”
It could not come at a worse time for the Labour government, which just last week approved Beijing’s new mega-embassy in London, little more than a stone’s throw from the Tower of London—and, most importantly, right by some of Britain’s most sensitive communication cables.
This decision had already prompted fury, with critics saying the embassy will amount to a “spy hub in the heart of our financial capital.” It has now become much more difficult for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s team to launch any kind of defence.
It's tempting to say that if this brings down the Labour government, and especially if that brings Nigel Farage's Reform party to the fore, well, then all's well that ends well. But this is the sort of thing that should transcend political partisanship; this is a serious cyberattack.
It's also apparently exposing some embarrassing shenanigans on the part of some of the people targeted.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer is handling the affair with his usual competency, which is to say, not very much.
Starmer will also meet President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Wednesday, January 28th, to discuss ending what he called an “ice age” of relations, even as evidence suggests the lines have never truly gone cold.
Reports say a “massive China reset” could soon be underway—a move hardly likely to reassure the public, especially now.
The general desire is for there to be less bowing down to Beijing, not more.
Does the Prime Minister not understand that this was an attack? By state-sponsored actors? From China?
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Remember the opening line above: If China can do this to the Brits, they can do it to us. If they haven't done so already, they're trying, sure as shooting.
Of course, Chinese operatives have already found some receptive ears in the higher levels of our government, including one (Democrat) member of the House of Representatives, who fell stupidly into a Chinese honey trap and still maintains he wasn't compromised. I could also name a current state Governor, who has more recent troubles than his fixation with China, but it will be interesting to see what he does when he leaves office, and who his eventual Chinese handler will be.
Espionage and counterespionage have, of course, been going on since the first two cavemen snuck over the hill to see what their neighbor was doing. And, for every Chinese hacker crouched in a basement in Beijing, you can be assured that there's probably an American hacker crouched in a basement in Langley, trying to do unto them before they do unto us. That's how the game is played. But in this case, the Chinese hackers have scored a coup, and the Brits better find the door they came in through and slam it shut - and we'd better be watching for them to try the same thing on us.
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