China, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Security

The ISS said that Russian special services are not the only ones trying to approach naive prospective recruits in Estonia. 

"Online recruitment attempts by Chinese intelligence targeting EU citizens are increasingly common. Public officials and professionals are approached on the internet, seeking to attract them with lucrative job offers and paid foreign trips," the authority said in the yearbook.

According to the ISS, Chinese companies are not really interested in paying thousands of euros just for a review of some publicly available material. The authority said it has reason to believe that Chinese special services are behind most such offers, and being paid for compiling an apparently innocent summary or analysis may lead to a deeper collaborative relationship involving requests or demands to pass on state secrets or other confidential information. 

"Again, we would like to remind the reader that any collaboration with foreign special services against Estonia is punishable, and invite everyone to report immediately all such offers to the ISS. We wish to appeal to the conscience of all those with access to sensitive or classified information who have experienced such attempts to approach them but have so far failed to inform the ISS, and ask them to do so now," it is said in the yearbook.