And most of the skills the Chinese use in such attacks are taught to them in UK Universities, the Confucius Institute so popular with UK Uni's is part of the Chinese Gov't's extended reach operations, along with embedded academic's who facilitate direct industrial and research espionage.
When the Chinese Ambassador visits a research facility of any sort at least part of their party, usually those described as secretarial support, will try to 'accidentally' wander off to see what else is being worked on, far from being secretaries they will be trained scientific and security staff tasked with gathering information on the nature of other projects and security. Where they find something interesting they cannot get enough information on the security info enables future targeting for direct 'out of hours unauthorised visits', facilitated by either their embedded staff contacts or break-in and theft of information/samples, though with most things computer based now they will simply lift most information by hacking, excepting commercial operations within using stand alone machines which need physical access, those they steal.
With most Universities any pretence of security beyond the protective security for the visitors goes out the window with such VIP visits, with VC's and other impotent (s.p.!) academics falling over themselves to ingratiate and facilitate in the hope of funding, or an overseas visiting chair in a Chinese University... Anonimouse for obvious reasons.