Fear driving China’s tech manipulation poses threat to all -UK spy chief

Tuesday's speech by Britain's chief cyberspy will warn that Beijing is using its financial and technological might to control technology in a way that jeopardizes international security and that its activities may pose "a significant danger to us all."

The head of the GCHQ intelligence agency, Jeremy Fleming, will claim in a speech that China's leadership was attempting to leverage innovations like digital currencies and its Beidou satellite navigation network to increase control over its people at home while expanding its influence overseas.

According to excerpts provided by his office, Fleming will make the following statement at the annual security lecture at the Royal United Services Institute think tank: "They strive to ensure their advantage via scale and through control."

This indicates that instead of trying to find methods to assist and maximize the potential of their inhabitants, they search for ways to control the Chinese people. They see countries as either prospective enemies or potential client states that may be intimidated, bought off, or forced.

The comments represent Fleming's most recent public cautions over Beijing's actions and goals. He said last year that the West will have to fight to prevent China from controlling key developing fields like genetics, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence.

The Chinese leadership, according to Fleming, was motivated by a fear of their own people, of freedom of expression, of free commerce, of open technical standards and alliances, and of "the whole open, democratic order and the international rules-based system."

He would later claim that this concern, along with China's might, was pushing it "into measures that potentially constitute a significant danger to us all."

China has previously referred to such claims made by Western governments as unfounded slander that are driven by politics.

Fleming will also draw attention to the technological areas where he believes China is trying to gain an advantage, such as the creation of a centralized digital currency that would allow it to track user transactions and potentially avoid the kind of sanctions that Russia has been subject to since its invasion of Ukraine.

He will also mention Beidou, China's response to the GPS navigation system controlled by the United States.

He will argue that many people think China is developing strong anti-satellite weapons with the intention of denying other countries access to space in the event of a confrontation. "And there are worries that people may be tracked using the technology."