While much attention has been given to Xi Jinping’s increasingly assertive foreign policy, far less has been said about what is happening out of sight.

In Chinese Spies, Nigel West argues that China’s Ministry of State Security has quietly shifted from industrial and technological espionage to something more direct—and more ambitious. Western intelligence agencies themselves are now in the crosshairs. Using a network of seemingly legitimate commercial partnerships and academic links, Beijing appears to be building access in places previously thought secure. How far this strategy has progressed—and how effective it has been—remains an open question.

What has triggered this change in doctrine? How vulnerable are Western institutions in reality? And what does this mean as tensions between China and the West continue to rise?

Nigel West, widely regarded as the unofficial historian of the secret services, will address these questions in what promises to be a measured but unsettling account of a largely unseen contest now shaping global politics.