Amid growing concern over the scale of Beijing’s espionage activity in the UK, senior officials in Westminster have been warned to avoid known “hotspots” in the SW1 area — including pubs, luxury hotels, and even public parks.
One source told the Mail on Sunday: “We have been told the Chinese literally have the park bugged, with devices in the bushes and under park benches.”
St James’s Park, which borders key government departments such as the Foreign Office, Treasury and Downing Street, is said to be a key focus due to its popularity among civil servants and researchers taking lunch breaks.
The historic Red Lion pub, a popular haunt for MPs, is also considered high risk. “It’s full of Chinese agents,” one source said.
Five-star hotels near Westminster, including the Corinthia by Trafalgar Square and the new Raffles on Whitehall, have also been identified as surveillance hotspots.
Beijing is reportedly targeting not only high-profile figures but also the junior staff working in and around Parliament.
“Commons researchers are regarded by the Chinese, and other spies including the Russians and Iranians, as the soft underbelly of Whitehall,” said one source.
Parliament remains a daily target for cyber attacks by hostile states, with MPs critical of China reporting frequent hacking attempts. Security briefings are routinely issued to parliamentarians to help manage the threat.
Beyond Westminster, there are growing fears about Chinese cyber-espionage targeting the UK’s military health sector. Doctors treating British service personnel have been advised to avoid bringing mobile phones into consultations and to rely on paper records, amid attempts by Chinese hackers to access sensitive patient data.
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One GP with military patients, speaking anonymously, said: “I have a real problem with the Chinese trying to get my communications.”
A senior security source added: “We need to wake the world up to just how serious the situation is. We’ve got too many people looking to make ties with China. They need a wake-up call.”
The latest warnings follow concerns that anonymised GP records from the NHS are being accessed by Chinese researchers. Data from around half a million patients is held in the UK Biobank, and analysis suggests one in five successful applications for access comes from China.
MPs have warned that the data could be exploited by Beijing for military or bioweapons development.
It comes after it was revealed that plans for a new Chinese ‘super-embassy’ in London could include hidden “spy dungeons” and interrogation cells in the capital’s diplomatic quarter.