Picking up some tips, Dom? No10 aide Dominic Cummings is spotted reading book on Chinese spies in the wake of Huawei row
- Dominic Cummings spotted reading book on Chinese espionage in Downing St
- The adviser was carrying ‘Chinese Spies’ as he arrived for work this morning
- Book tracks the ‘sprawling tentacles of the world’s largest intelligence service’
Boris Johnson’s maverick aide Dominic Cummings has been reading up on the Chinese secret services.
Mr Cummings was photographed carrying a copy of Chinese Spies by journalist Roger Faligot as he walked into Downing Street this morning.
The book tracks the development of Beijing’s intelligence network since the 1920s – suggesting that it might now be the ‘most powerful in the world’.
The No10 adviser is known to be a keen student of the internal workings of governments, having written lengthy blogs on organisation and management techniques.
The UK government has been focused on China’s spying capabilities recently as it considered whether to grant Huawei a role in the 5G network.
Dominic Cummings was photographed carrying a copy of Chinese Spies by journalist Roger Faligot as he walked into No10 this morning (pictured)
The book tracks the development of Beijing’s intelligence network since the 1920s – suggesting that it might now be the ‘most powerful in the world’
Ministers announced last week that the Chinese tech giant will be allowed a ‘limited’ role in the huge project, despite objections from the US.
On a visit to the UK last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated Donald Trump’s view that Huawei posed a ‘very great risk’.
He said the US had an ‘obligation to protect American information that might travel across these systems’.
According to its publicity material, Chinese Spies ‘exposes the sprawling tentacles of the world’s largest intelligence service, from the very birth of communist China to Xi Jinping’s absolute rule today’.
The book seeks to tell the ‘global’ story of Chinese espionage.
‘This murky world has swept up Ho Chi Minh, the Clintons and everyone in between, with the action moving from Cambodia to Cambridge, and from the Australian outback to the centres of Western power,’ the publicity material says.
Mr Cummings posted a review of another book about China on his blog in 2017, discussing how the West could address the challenge of the rising Eastern power.
‘China erects skyscrapers in weeks while Parliament delays Heathrow expansion for over a decade,’ he wrote.
‘The EU discusses dumb rules made 60 years ago while China produces a Greece-sized economy every 16 weeks.
‘China’s economy doubles roughly every seven years; it is already the size of America’s and will likely dwarf it in 20 years.
‘More serious than Europe, it invests this growth in education and technology from genetic engineering to artificial intelligence.’
The adviser is known to be a keen student of the internal workings of governments, having written lengthy blogs on management techniques