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British intelligence retools to meet the growing challenge of China

ASPEN, Colo. — Britain’s storied MI6 foreign intelligence service has retooled its operations with a major focus on the threat posed by China, the agency’s director said in rare public remarks Thursday.

“MI6 has never had any illusions about communist China,” Richard Moore, chief of what is called the Secret Intelligence Service, told the Aspen Security Conference being held here this week.

Unlike its CIA counterpart, MI6 is a dedicated human spying agency that does not engage in intelligence analysis, Mr. Moore said. The agency was made famous by novelist Ian Fleming’s James Bond movies and by former MI6 officer John le Carre’s espionage novels.