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Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu. Every episode I'll be talking to

journalists, experts and long-time China

watches about the latest in Chinese politics, society and more. There'll be a smattering of

history to catch you up on the background knowledge and some context as well. How do the Chinese

see these issues? Over the last week, the UK has been rocked by allegations that China was responsible for two cyber attacks in recent years.

One on the Electoral Commission, where hackers successfully accessed the Open Register, which has the details of 40 million voters.

And there was also a set of attempts to access the emails of a number of China critics within Parliament.

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden made a statement to the Commons.

The United Kingdom judges that these actions demonstrate a clear and persistent pattern of behaviour

that signals hostile intent from China.

The UK does not accept that China's relationship with the United Kingdom is set on a predetermined course,

but this depends on the choices that China makes.

So what do we know about China's cyber capabilities? What are its goals? And now the UK knows about these attacks, what should we be doing?

Joining me on a podcast today is Nigel Inkster, senior advisor for cyber security and China at the think tank IIS. He's also formerly director of operations and intelligence at MI6, and author of China's

Cyberpower, a 2016 book on precisely this question.

So Nigel, welcome back to Chinese Whispers.

Should we start with your reaction to the recent allegations?

Are you surprised by them at all?

...