China is a huge threat to all of us: British spy agency director 

DHARAMSALA, 11 Oct: The British spy agency director has warned that China’s plans for global technological dominance pose a huge threat to all of us.

“Britain faces a sliding doors moment in history with China, whose plans for global technological dominance pose a huge threat to us all,” the head of Government Communications Headquarters(GCHQ), Sir Jeremy Fleming has said, reports the mainline.

“At GCHQ it is our privilege and duty to see the sliding door moments of history. This feels like one of those moments,” Fleming has said and added that “Our future strategic technology advantage rests on what we as a community do next”.

According to the report, Fleming fears China, the hostile state is using key technologies to spread its influence around the world – even using surveillance from space.

The intelligence chief has reportedly raised the prospect that China is building a satellite system capable of tracking individuals around the world in a speech on Monday.

Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China still poses the greater long-term threat to global security, Fleming has said in the report and reasoned that the Chinese Communist Party is learning lessons from Russia’s ‘staggering’ losses in Ukraine while seeking to build a centralised digital currency to insulate itself from international sanctions if China invades Taiwan.

British spy agency director is of the view that China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system, which works similarly to GPS, is being developed as both a means to track people and as a secret weapon to incapacitate satellites used by rival Western nations.

The report noted that the BeiDou, which provides navigation to aircraft, submarines, missiles and commercial services, has already been built into Chinese exports to more than 120 countries worldwide.

Fleming believes that “China’s great strength combined with fear is driving [it] into actions that could represent a huge threat to us all”.

He fears China is seeking to create ‘client economies and governments’ by selling technology cheaply to other countries to leverage influence.

Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom.