É um fato: Estados vilões - aqui identificados explicitamente com a Rússia de Putin, a China de Xi Jinping e o Irã dos aiatolás - usam o conhecimento avançado obtido nos centros de produção mais sofisticados como alavancas contra os seus próprios povos e contra outras nações civilizadas. Goste-se ou não da afirmação, ela parece evidente.
You are targets for hostile states, students told
Fiona Hamilton
Crime and Security Editor
Times, July 27, 2023
Universities are "magnetic targets for espionage and manipulation", the head of M15 has warned, as he compared the global scientific race to the Cold War.
Ken McCallum said hostile actors were stealing British research with "dispiriting regularity" and urged students to be extremely cautious to avoid passing secrets to China, Russia and Iran.
McCallum said: "Today's contest for scientific and technological advantage is not a rerun of what we had in the Cold War but it is every bit as far reaching. Systemic competition means just that.
If your field of research is relevant to advanced materials or quantum computing or AI or biotech, to name but a few, your work will be of interest to people employed by states who do not share our values."
McCallum issued the warning last month as he delivered the annual Bowman Lecture at the University of Glasgow, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1996. He was speaking to students, staff and alumni.
He has previously said that spies for hostile states are targeting politicians, military officials, think tanks, academics and other officials to gather valuable information but had not previously been so explicit in his language about the threat at universities.
Last week a report by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee said universities had become a "rich feeding ground" for China to seek intellectual property and military technology, saying some had turned a "blind eye" to the risks while taking its money.
The Times revealed last year that British universities had accepted £240 million for research collaborations with Chinese institutions, many with links to the military, leading to concerns the work could help Beijing to build superweapons.
McCallum told Glasgow students:
"Hostile actors working for other states make it their business to take your hard work and use it for their gain... We see this happening with dispiriting regularity. Precisely because our great universities are so great and rightly prize openness, they are magnetic targets for espionage and manipulation."
He added: "If you look at what [Vladimir] Putin's military and mercenaries are doing in Ukraine; at the Iranian regime's ongoing suppression of its own people; at the restrictions of freedoms in Hong Kong and human rights violations in Xinjiang, or China's escalatory activity around Taiwan - I don't think you want the fruits of your inspiration and perspiration to be turned to the advantage of the Russian, Iranian or Chinese governments."
McCallum said students should not be fooled by attractive conference invitations, collaboration proposals, "donations with strings" or "jointly funded research that builds dependency".
"These aren't hypotheticals," he said. "They're things MI5 sees in investigations week by week, and they happen in universities just like Glasgow."
The National Protective Security Authority, which is part of MI5, will offer expert advice and training to universities, businesses and institutions to help them protect themselves.
