CHINA is allegedly engaged in a massive "Trojan Horse" operation aimed at getting hold of military technology and knowhow, experts have warned.
“Tens of thousands” of potential spies are feared to be working inside universities and companies, passing on secret technology that one day may be used against the West.
Fears have been raised China is dangling huge amounts of cash to get its hands on top tech from the US and UK.
Beijing has funded research in “blindly naive” universities, poached RAF fighter pilots to train its own, and lured Chinese nationals home with big salaries after they worked in top secret projects.
Research labs are said to be the new front in a global arms race as China seeks to overtake the US as the world's dominant superpower.
President Xi Jinping has said he wants parity by 2027 and to have overtaken its rival by 2049, a century after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Now a new report claims that at least 60 Chinese nationals have been working in UK universities on projects that could have military use.
The figures are the “tip of the iceberg”, says the study, and among them are at least two serving members of the People’s Liberation Army.
Its author Robert Clark says the legend of the Trojan Horse is the “perfect metaphor” to describe Chinese activities.
The 60 have come from one of China’s giant defence groups or from PLA linked universities rated as "high risk" or "very high risk" which include the "Seven Sons of National Defence".
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Companies sponsoring UK-based research centres include China’s largest weapons manufacturers, says the study by Civitas.
They include makers of strike fighter engines, nuclear missiles and warheads, stealth aircraft, drones, tanks, military-use metals and materials, and warships.
One example is the Aviation Industry Corporation of China which supports the AVIC Centre for Structural Design at Imperial College London.
AVIC makes China’s J-20 stealth fighter – known as the Mighty Dragon – which is designed to match warplanes such as the RAF’s F-35 Lightning and US Air Force's F-22 Raptor.
The centre also co-operates with, among others, the First Aircraft Institute, which designed China’s new H-20 stealth bomber, a lookalike of America's B-2 Spirit.
Clark says universities are ignoring concerns he raised last year about them inadvertently helping to arm China and are “still evidently blindly naive”.
“Many of these technologies in the research projects we have uncovered are actively being sought by the PLA,” he said.
“All of which will enable China to eventually become the global military hegemon unless more systems are put in place to slow this eventuality from occurring.”
He said all this adds up to “serious consequences for British national security”.
Earlier this year, it emerged 50 PLA-linked Chinese students have left the UK in the past three years after the government tightened the rules to prevent the theft of sensitive research.
Clark, a former British Army soldier who fought in Afghanistan, said the Chinese nationals were “potential spies”.
“Some are active members of the PLA, therefore the risk of espionage is very high,” he said, particularly as some of these 60 are from companies blacklisted by the US from working in America.
He called for the rules to be tightened to ban the National University of Defence Technology, the Seven Sons of National Defence, and all Chinese defence conglomerates from working in the UK.
It comes as it emerged China is offering salaries of £240,000 to former British fighter pilots to work as instructors.
Around 30 have already betrayed Britain by joining flight schools training the PLA's pilots.
Experts fear Beijing hired them hoping to glean secrets of Western planes and tactics that could give China an advantage in battle.
Meanwhile, 162 Chinese scientists who worked on top secret research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atom bomb, returned to China to work on shady missile programs.
Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired veteran US Department of Defense intelligence official and a visiting senior research fellow at King’s College London, has long warned about China’s efforts to get hold of military technology.
“China uses a 'whole of society' approach to conduct worldwide espionage,” he said.
“It is not the style of espionage Western Intelligence services are adequately prepared to mitigate.”
He said the problem is that “democracies don't often restrict this type of information or collaboration”.
China's efforts to acquire foreign military technology include "collaborative research", mergers and acquisitions, talent programs, and theft.
The expert added: “There are hundreds of cases in the United States alone where China employed front companies to buy export restricted technologies.
“The same has recently been seen in the UK, where former military personnel were providing combat training to China.
“There are tens of thousands of people working on behalf of China in Western companies and academic institutions.”
He said western universities “clearly recognise China is a brutal authoritarian state, and yet they continue to collaborate and conduct joint research on technologies with clear military application”.
“It's difficult to tell whether universities are naive or just hungry for money,” he said.
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Imperial insists the projects are “fundamental scientific research” and “all partnerships and collaborations undergo thorough scrutiny and are regularly reviewed”.
The university says it works closely with the government “in line with our commitments to UK national security” adding that the AVIC centre will soon be closing.
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