This time last year Britain’s top cyber spy warned that China represents an ‘epoch-defining challenge’. Anne Keast-Butler, the director of GCHQ, accused China of defying international norms and said that the country was the agency’s ‘top priority’. Beijing has been blamed for a string of cyber attacks on British institutions, including hacking the Ministry of Defence’s payroll system and stealing data about UK voters from the Electoral Commission. In recent months the intelligence services have alleged that Chinese spies have penetrated the inner circle of the Duke of York, infiltrated Westminster circles, and targeted Hong Kong dissidents in the UK. This is alleged spying and disruption on a grand scale by China.
That’s why more than a few eyebrows will have been raised by reports that the front runner for the top job at MI6, the service focused on gathering intelligence overseas, is Dame Barbara Woodward – a former ambassador to China who critics have accused of being soft on Beijing. So much so that her detractors have dubbed her ‘Beijing Barbara’. Just as troubling is that she has never been a spy, and presumably knows little about the nitty-gritty of agent handling and recruiting spies. Woodward is Britain’s ambassador to the UN and the most senior woman in the Foreign Office, a department she joined in 1994. Between 2009 and 2011, she was international director of the UK Border Agency. If successful, she would replace the current head of the service, Sir Richard Moore, who is due to step down in the autumn after five years at the helm. Moore served in undercover roles at MI6 in Vietnam, Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia.
Woodward’s critics are adamant that she is too close to China to be effective in the role. They point to her reluctance to criticise Beijing during her stint as ambassador to China between 2015 and 2020. There have also been reports of Woodward being at odds with a succession of foreign secretaries over China’s persecution and oppression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, which has been widely described as genocide. Tens of thousands have been forcibly sent to ‘re-education camps’, where there is evidence they are subjected to torture.
The former ambassador was in post at the time when China sanctioned a group of MPs and peers for criticising the regime’s treatment of the Uighurs. One of those targeted claimed that Woodward did ‘absolutely nothing to help’. Shortly before leaving the country, she told the pro-Beijing, English-language newspaper Global Times that independence for Taiwan was not an option. Her approach – it might charitably be described as an abundance of diplomatic caution – is less than ideal in a potential leader of the security services at a time when the threats from Beijing are all too real. Woodward’s supporters would counter that her long experience in China works in her favour, giving her a unique perspective and insight when it comes to understanding the regime’s motives and methods.
Her position might charitably be described as an abundance of diplomatic caution
The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will make the final decision, based on the recommendation of an expert board, which includes David Lammy, the foreign secretary (say no more), and Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser. It has also emerged that Sir Oliver Robbins, the top civil servant in the Foreign Office and probably best known for his time as Britain’s Brexit negotiator, is also on the panel. This feels like one too many foreign office fingers in the pie. Interviews for the post are believed to have taken place last week.
All three final candidates are women – two of them serving MI6 officers who cannot be identified for security reasons. So, one way or another, the agency will gain its first ever female boss. It has had 17 male chiefs since 1909. A first female head of MI6 is all well and good, and a significant milestone, but there are bigger issues at play. These are perilous and unpredictable times, and the intelligence agencies – to state the obvious – have a critical role to play in keeping Britain safe. It is vital that ministers get this appointment right. Dame Barbara Woodward, if she wins the big prize, has her work cut out to convince the sceptics that she understands the scale of the Chinese threat.
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