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It appears that since 2018, under President Xi Jinping, China's appetite to expand and entrench its global influence has grown. Seeking to exert influence is a legitimate goal: however, China's activity does not stop there, as it increasingly seeks to interfere.

HMG told us that China likely dedicates substantial resource to its interference operations, with *** its most important targets. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the UK is immune from targeting by Chinese political interference operations, since China seeks to gain wider legitimacy by influencing UK opinion.

The boundary between influence and interference is hard to define, but can be broadly articulated as the difference between those diplomatic and soft power activities that are generally considered 'legitimate', and those that are considered 'illegitimate' (although of course legitimacy is subjective and some countries—not least China itself—are likely to set a lower threshold for which activities they consider to be interference in their affairs). The former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has described interference as "foreign influence activities that are in any way covert, coercive, or corrupt".

There does not appear to have been a consistent definition within the UK Government of what constitutes interference until 2019, when the National Security Council was due to approve the following definition of foreign interference' (albeit it does not appear to have been discussed):

"Foreign interference involves deceptive, coercive, corruptive or threatening actions on behalf of, in collaboration with, or directed by a foreign principal. Interference activity can be overt and/or covert. Interference is a spectrum of activity that is unfavourable to UK national security and/or economic wellbeing; detrimental to or undermines political or democratic processes at the local or national level; undermines academic thought and freedom of expression; or undermines UK sovereignty."

In May 2021, the consultation on Legislation to Counter State Threats (Hostile State Activity) gave the following definition:

a wide range of activity through which states seek to further their aims by use of covert means or by obfuscation of intent and originator, including disinformation,