MI6 Boss On The Agency's Intelligence Approach, Warns Of China 'Debt Traps And Data Traps'

MI6 chief Richard Moore has warned of China's "debt traps and data traps" in his first live broadcast interview. Mr Moore - known as "C" - told BBC Radio 4's Today programme these traps threatened to erode sovereignty and have prompted defensive measures.

He denied the fall of Afghan capital Kabul was an intelligence failure and signalled closer ties with tech giants. The decision to speak more openly about his work was important in a modern democracy, the ex-secret agent said. In a wide-ranging interview ahead of his first major public speech since taking on the role as head of MI6, Mr Moore:

Speaking about the threat posed by China, Mr Moore described its use of "debt traps and data traps". He said Beijing is "trying to use influence through its economic policies to try and sometimes, I think, get people on the hook".

Explaining the "data trap", he said: "If you allow another country to gain access to really critical data about your society, over time that will erode your sovereignty, you no longer have control over that data."That's something which, I think, in the UK we are very alive to and we've taken measures to defend against."



'Clearly wrong'
The assessment of the speed at which the Taliban would seize control of Kabul as British and American troops withdrew from Afghanistan was "clearly wrong", Mr Moore admitted. But he said it was "really overblown to describe it in terms of intelligence failure". "None of us predicted the speed of the fall of Kabul," he said.

"Frankly, if we had recruited every member of the Taliban Shura, you know, the leadership group of the Taliban, [if] we recruited every one of them as a secret agent, we still wouldn't have predicted the fall of Kabul because the Taliban didn't."

However, he added that there is no "soft soaping" that the victory of the Taliban had been a "serious reverse" and he is concerned it will be a "morale boost for extremists around the world, and indeed for those sitting in the capitals in Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow".

Mr Moore described Russia as an "acute threat" and said Russian President Vladimir Putin has been clear that he does not recognise Ukraine's right to be an independent state. "From time to time we get sort of crises around Ukraine as we worry about build-up of troops and what President Putin's intentions might be," he said.

"Therefore it bears very careful watching and it bears very careful signalling to the Russians about, you know, the price that they would have to pay if they intervened, as they did in 2014. He said there was not "an adversarial sort of agenda here", adding: "We're not trying to encircle Russia, we're not trying to prevent it from pursuing its legitimate interest."

Mr Moore said closer ties with tech giants would help the real-life "Qs" - as played by Ben Whishaw in recent James Bond films - stay ahead. Looking ahead to the future of the Secret Intelligence Service, Mr Moore said he wanted to "partner in a different way" with the UK's technology industry to help its real-life "Q labs" stay ahead. But he said the service would always uphold UK laws around privacy and data.

Mr Moore also revealed the significance of the green ink used by those in his role - which came from a tradition started by Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first head of MI6, or "C". He said the green ink means those working in the service know any directive has been signed by him. "The same is true of my typescript on my computer," he added.