UK Chief of Defence Intelligence Lieutenant General Jim Hockenhull has said that the British military is "actively recruiting" new spies to be rapidly deployed in the Asian region as Washington, London, and Canberra heat up tensions with China amid a newly-announced security pact viewed by many as a counter to Beijing.
"We are deploying defence intelligence personnel and we have started into a range of locations around Europe and we are currently recruiting for those that will go further east", Hockenhull said, as cited by the Daily Mail.
Hockenhull also revealed that he is currently in the process of recruting fluent Japanese-speaking military members so that they can later be turned into intelligence officers because he "think[s] that is a shorter way of working than it is to take a serving intelligence officer and try and get them to be a fluent Japanese speaker".
"We are trying to be imaginative in the way we do this and I hope that individual will be available to deploy if not later this year then certainly next", Hockenhull continued.
The so-called "imaginative" approach was unveiled just days after the announcement of the new defence pact between the UK, the US, and Australia, which will provide the latter with several nuclear-powered submarines.
This development raised eyebrows among many members of the international community, particularly France, with Paris appearing to be so angry over the new deal that it moved to cancel a gala that was meant to be held in the French Embassy in Washington, DC. According to reports, it was the new defence initiative that prompted the cancellation of the event commemorating the 240th anniversary of the Battle of Capes.
Even though the members of AUKUS assured that the deal is not about "antagonising anyone", including Beijing, China voiced concerns about the defence pact, suggesting that it will disrupt regional security and undermine non-proliferation agreements, calling on the West to move away from their "Cold War mentality".