China is spying on us, so what?

That China is spying on us is hardly the revelation of the century. The Sunday Times broke the story that police have arrested two men amid allegations that a parliamentary researcher was spying for China. The spy, working on international policy, had alleged links to senior Tory MPs with sensitive information. He had previously lived and worked in China, leaving officials apparently fearing he may have been a ‘sleeper agent’ recruited to infiltrate British political networks. 

Cue howls of indignation all round. An unnamed source close to Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of the foreign affairs select committee to whom the spy allegedly had access, claimed the allegations, if true, constituted a ‘serious escalation and show the CCP will go to any length to attack thorns in their side.’ A senior Whitehall source called it a ‘major escalation’, claiming ‘we have never seen anything like this before.’ 

Really? Espionage is serious, but such spying is hardly a serious escalation of what is already a difficult relationship with a state which undoubtedly poses a threat.