Five Eyes alliance looks to expand reach to counteract China's influence

The UK Government is said to be in talks to resurrect the Five Eye’s 'Critical Five' group to tackle supply dependency on China.

Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. These countries are parties to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.

It is understood that “feverish discussions” are in place to see one of the alliance’s bodies – which focuses on critical infrastructure such as communications and energy – sit again after a hiatus of five years.

A source told The Telegraph: “Clearly, everyone is panicked. They haven’t met for five years, but fears over supplies and our ability to secure ourselves have grown so great that the governments are resurrecting this historic body in order to tackle security together.

“Many in the Government with long memories remember the early work of the Critical Five and see it as an oven-ready structure to address this challenge on a multilateral basis.”

The Critical Five, which was created in 2012, defined critical infrastructure “as the systems, assets, facilities and networks that provide essential services and are necessary for the national security, economic security, prosperity, and health and safety of their respective nations”.

However, it is thought that the members have not convened since 2015 because they could not all agree on six sectors they determined to be “critical infrastructure”.

The sectors they did agree on to be critical were communications, energy, healthcare and public health, transportation systems  and water.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative Party leader, said the group’s resurrection was “the right thing to do”, but cautioned that it was “long overdue”.

“It should have been sitting the whole time, it should have never stopped sitting in the first place, it should have been constantly on the game,” he told this newspaper.

Sam Armstrong, communications director for foreign policy thinktank the Henry Jackson Society, said: “Given how strategically dependent the UK has found itself to be on China, it is welcome that we are now working with our closest allies to unpick the worst excesses of this potential threat.

"Tackling a challenge as complex as China’s artificial dominance of great swathes of the world economy can’t be fixed without finally turning to our allies for help."

It comes after Five Eyes is considering expanding its membership to include Japan.

Such a move would see it strengthen into a strategic economic relationship that brings together critical mineral and medical supplies.

It is understood that “advanced discussions” are underway about a new shared minerals security plan within Five Eyes, due to the gargantuan amount of rare and semi-rare minerals that are sourced from China, such as magnesium, which is used in products such as laptops and cameras, of which China is the leading producer.

“There is a concern that, much like it did with Japan previously, it could threaten to cut off the supply of these goods ... which has the potential to cause a security risk,” the source added.

Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, has welcomed the prospect of Japan becoming the sixth member of Five Eyes.

He said it was right that the group “should look at partners we can trust to deepen our alliances”.

“Japan is an important strategic partner for many reasons and we should be looking at every opportunity to cooperate more closely,” he added.