‘Honey traps’ had been one among a number of alleged safety threats on which the UK overseas secretary was reportedly briefed
Forward of a go to to Beijing by UK Overseas Secretary James Cleverly, British spies particularly warned his group to be looking out for engaging ladies who may seduce and blackmail them, the Each day Mail reported on Wednesday.
Cleverly arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for talks with Chinese language Overseas Affairs Minister Wang Yi and Vice President Han Zhen. With British media claiming two weeks earlier that Chinese language and Russian “hackers” had breached his workplace’s safety methods, the Overseas Workplace mentioned Cleverly would focus on “malign cyber exercise” along with his Chinese language counterparts.
In accordance with the Each day Mail, Cleverly’s entourage acquired a number of weeks of safety coaching earlier than the journey. They had been informed to depart their very own smartphones and laptops at residence, and to deal with each lodge and assembly room as bugged.
“Civil servants ought to anticipate their lodging to be wired for sound and video. Your lodge room will not be a non-public house,” a authorities supply informed the newspaper.
The group had been additionally informed to watch out for what the Each day Mail referred to as “glamorous ladies,” who may ply them with consideration, earlier than stealing from them or blackmailing them.
There is no such thing as a proof that Cleverly or his entourage had been subjected to those espionage techniques, and as a result of clandestine nature of espionage, states hardly ever admit to surveilling overseas officers. For instance, Washington’s wiretapping of former German chancellor Angela Merkel remained a secret till it was revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and the US’ bugging of South Korean authorities communications was not recognized till it was talked about in leaked Pentagon paperwork earlier this yr.
A Overseas Workplace spokesman informed the Each day Mail that “intensive safety measures” are typical for such high-level overseas journeys.
British authorities have claimed for years that China makes use of so-called ‘honey trapping’ to extract data from gullible Western males. In a 2009 doc, the UK’s home intelligence company, MI5, warned banks and companies that feminine Chinese language intelligence operatives had been recognized to hunt out “long-term relationships” with Western targets, and to “exploit vulnerabilities resembling sexual relationships… to pressurize people to cooperate with them.”
China has repeatedly denied such claims. When FBI Director Christopher Wray and MI5 Director Ken McCallum warned final yr that Beijing was nonetheless actively focusing on Western companies, Chinese language Overseas Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused the 2 Western spy chiefs of “creating imaginary enemies” and “making an attempt to challenge their very own disgraceful acts onto China.”
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