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The UK government plans to tighten scrutiny of Chinese activity within its Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) without placing Beijing in the same bracket as Moscow and Tehran, as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer seeks to deepen Sino-British relations.
Ministers have avoided including China with Russia and Iran in the enhanced tier of the scheme, which is designed to give the UK public greater assurance around the activities of foreign powers seen as posing a national security risk.
Officials are now drawing up plans, to be unveiled later this year, which are likely to involve placing only certain Chinese state-controlled entities linked to the most sensitive sectors in the enhanced tier, without including the entire Chinese state.
The plans are not finalised, but officials hope such a move could help better protect the UK from security threats posed by China without denting bilateral economic links, according to people familiar with the discussions.
One of the people said one proposal that had been floated was to place in the enhanced tier both China’s Ministry of State Security and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. The latter is an arm of the party that seeks to influence people or groups both within China and in other countries in pursuit of its goals.
The discussions about FIRS formed part of a wider cross-Whitehall tussle about how tough an approach the UK should take with China, the people added.
Starmer’s trip to Beijing and Shanghai this week is partly aimed at securing fresh investment from China, the UK’s fourth-biggest trading partner, and deepening business links.
It comes after the UK intelligence agencies have issued multiple warnings about large-scale Chinese espionage — including cyber-espionage — targeting government, industry and academia.
Britain formally designated a Chinese state-affiliated hacking group as “highly likely” to have been behind a hack of the Electoral Commission in 2021-22 and the “almost certain” culprit responsible for a cyber attack against UK MPs.
Provisions to establish FIRS were devised during the last Conservative government under the National Security Act 2023, but the scheme only came into force last July.
The scheme is intended to bolster transparency over the activities of hostile powers in the UK and has two tiers: the basic tier that encompasses “political influence” and an “enhanced tier” that is more wide-ranging.
The lower tier requires individuals and organisations in the UK to register any political influence activities carried out in Britain that are directed by a foreign power (bar Ireland) or certain foreign state-linked entities.
The higher tier demands declaration of almost all activities conducted in the UK that are directed by foreign powers on the list, including commercial and research activities, as well as the provision of most goods and services.
When ministers launched FIRS last summer, a UK government official said there had been “discussion over many years” on whether China should be put in the top tier but that there were “no immediate plans” to add China or any other countries to the list.
Last October, the Joint Committee on Human Rights asked the government to explain why it had yet to decide on including China in the enhanced tier of the scheme.
Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, the group of international legislators concerned about Beijing’s activities, warned that if only China’s United Front Work Department and Ministry of State Security were included in the top tier, it would “not address the problem”.
“Scholars describe China’s approach to interference as a ‘whole-of-state’ enterprise . . . This is a party-state, and our national security legislation should reflect this fact,” he said.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “No decision has been made in relation to specifying China on the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.”
