China spies with its big, red eye

Singapore: Espionage is a fundamental part of how nations operate, collecting information and parrying foreign influence. China has arguably one of the world’s largest intelligence agencies, utilizing paid employees, a host of proxy organizations like the United Front Work Department (UFWD) and even civilians that collect data for the government.

Western countries spent years focusing on Islamic terrorism, especially after the 9/11 attacks. Yet many intelligence agencies were slow to transition to the threat from China, whose spies have three main aims - to shape political and economic trends to advance Chinese interests; to gather information on sensitive industries (e.g. defence technologies); and to monitor diaspora populations (e.g. Uyghurs).

Whenever caught in nefarious activities, where hacking remains a preferred modus operandi, China screams phrases like “malicious slander” or “groundless accusations”. However, the FBI states on its website: “The counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts emanating from the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are a grave threat to the economic wellbeing and democratic values of the United States ... The Chinese government is employing tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable to China.”

It added that a whole-of-society response is necessary to counter Chinese efforts targeting “businesses, academic institutions, researchers, lawmakers and the general public”.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the USA surveyed publicly known cases of Chinese espionage from 2000 till March 2023. It discovered 224 incidents, excluding 1,200+ cases of intellectual property theft. This figure greatly surpassed those of any other country, including Russia.

The survey’s authors noted: “When Xi Jinping took office...one of his first acts was to repurpose and reorient China’s collection priority to better serve long-term goals, clamping down on what appeared to be collection by some People’s Liberation Army (PLA) units intended for personal gain (i.e. stealing commercial technology and providing it to private companies for cash or favours) as part of his larger campaign against corruption. Of the 224 incidents, we found that 69 percent were reported after Xi took office.”

The CSIS survey added: “The long-term cost to the American economy and national security cannot be precisely measured, but estimates run into the billions of dollars for commercial and technological espionage. Chinese espionage also created immeasurable damage to national security with the theft of weapons technology, including nuclear weapons test data. In the last few years, China has added the theft of massive quantities of personal information, political coercion and influence operations to its espionage activities.”

It also noted, “Chinese nationals who come to the US to work or study are a fertile ground for recruitment. Often they intend to return to China or have close family members resident in China, making them more susceptible to coercion.” Indeed, China can recruit citizens by offering financial incentives, or even threatening to punish family members still in China.

CSIS data found that 49 percent of incidents directly involved Chinese military or government employees; 41 percent were private Chinese citizens; 10 percent were non-Chinese actors (usually Americans recruited by China); 46 percent of incidents involved cyber espionage (usually by state-affiliated actors); 29 percent of incidents sought to acquire military technology; and 54 per cent sought commercial technologies.

Interestingly, there was a sharp dip in Chinese spying activity after a 2015 agreement between President Barack Obama and Chairman Xi Jinping to restrict commercial espionage by government entities. However, this decline quickly reversed within a year of the agreement.

Taiwan is particularly riddled by people spying for China. For example, three retired members of Taiwan’s Military Intelligence Bureau were sentenced to imprisonment on September 6 after being found guilty of creating a spy ring and passing classified information to China. Two colonels and a major general, plus another officer later acquitted for lack of evidence, had been indicted in 2021 for leaking information about Taiwan’s intelligence sources, organizations and personnel, and for developing the spy ring. China recruited them with offers of business incentives, cash and free trips.

Also in Taiwan, the High Court convicted eight current and retired military officers on August 22 for developing a separate Chinese spy network. This even involved an audacious plot to fly a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Taiwan Strait! With such malfeasance within Taiwan’s military, it is little wonder the US has refused to sell it top-tier platforms like the F-35 fighter.

Their sentences varied from 18 months to 13 years, and defendants included members of the 601st Brigade of the Aviation and Special Forces Command. They had been recruited by two Taiwanese businessmen working in China. Two junior officers had also been paid to film themselves saying, “In time of war, I agree to surrender to the Chinese PLA.”

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense admitted China is targeting its military and personnel for infiltration and espionage, and therefore all units must enhance national security education and training to safeguard information. Furthermore, all personnel must protect classified material, report suspicious activities promptly and cooperate with officers to prevent infiltration by spies.

New Zealand, a Five Eyes member and a country who rarely speaks out against China, is also becoming more vocal about malicious Chinese activity. The NZ Secret Intelligence Service recently released a report entitled “New Zealand’s Security Threat Environment” that specifically called out China. “The intelligence arm of the People’s Republic of China is well known for using professional social networking sites to identify unwitting candidates, including New Zealanders.

Bogus consultancy jobs are offered or similar roles that can be co-opted for reporting privileged information. Often this begins as an innocuous request for an article or a report on a benign topic and slowly progresses into more sensitive questions. By the time the unwitting candidate becomes aware that they are engaging with an illegitimate actor they have often already shared information they otherwise would not have.”

The report warned of foreign interference that uses deceptive, coercive or corruptive methods too. This includes long-term influence building, where “foreign states seek to use the relationship to influence a New Zealand official to undertake or cease an activity in a way that may be seen as a conflict of interest or even bribery”. Self-censorship is one example how this can happen.

The NZSIS gave a case study of this too. “A New Zealand-based Chinese language news outlet is almost certainly responsive to PRC direction and repeats approved talking points in New Zealand. Its publisher has attended PRC-organized media forums and signed content sharing agreements with organizations that also conform to the narrative. The news outlet routinely republishes material from sources that are directly or indirectly controlled by the PRC. While this type of state-influenced outlet is the norm in some countries, it runs contrary to widely accepted journalistic norms in New Zealand.”

China’s massive spy network boasts various agencies that encompass party, state and military, all of which are dedicated to prolonging CCP rule. Of course, this setup differs from the majority of other countries, where intelligence agencies pledge support to the nation and not to a single political party.

Formed in 1983, China’s secretive Ministry of State Security (MSS) is responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, domestic surveillance and national security intelligence. Its motto is “serve the people firmly and purely, reassure the party, be willing to contribute, be able to fight hard and win”. Its only website is a reporting platform where “good” citizens can dob in suspected spies.

Yet the MSS, for all its girth, still depends on organizations like the UFWD to gather intelligence. In a 2014 speech, Xi described the UFWD as a “magic weapon” for the “Chinese people’s great rejuvenation”. The UFWD is designed to look benign, often taking names like “friendship association”. Xi said, “Presently, our situation and our mission have undergone significant change. The larger the change, the more the United Front under the ‘new situation’ needs to be developed, the more United Front work needs to be carried out.” Xi said students studying abroad were a valuable, new focus in this work.

Chinese spying in the US was recently brought into sharp relief by the case of Linda Sun, a naturalized American citizen born in China and who had worked for New York state. Her roles included deputy chief of staff for Governor Kathy Hochul, and as an aide to her predecessor. A 64-page indictment said Sun, along with husband Chris Hu, conspired and violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, accusing her of money laundering, visa fraud and alien smuggling.

Sun allegedly and consistently blocked access by Taiwanese officials to New York officials, and shaped the state’s policy towards China and Taiwan. She delivered data to the Chinese consulate general in New York, all the while failing to disclose her connections with Chinese government officials to US authorities.

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu poured scorn on US accusations against Sun: “In recent years, the US government and media have frequently hyped up the so-called ‘Chinese agents’ narratives, many of which have later been proven untrue ... We firmly oppose the groundlessly slandering and smearing targeting China.” American and other officials are often reluctant to accuse someone of being a foreign agent and, as China did here with references to “slandering and smearing”, it pours fuel on the fire by playing the racism card. State and municipal governments in the USA are at greater risk of Chinese penetration because they do not require the strict vetting that occurs at the federal level.

Other recent US cases of Chinese spying are two men accused of running a covert police station in Lower Manhattan; three men convicted of stalking a family in New Jersey on behalf of the Chinese government; plus a 73-year-old activist convicted recently for acting and conspiring as a Chinese agent. Beijing has created covert police outposts all around the world, these being used to monitor and harass Chinese dissidents.

FBI Director Chris Wray warned in January that Beijing poses a “multi-pronged assault on our national and economic security”. Referring to Linda Sun’s case, Heather McMahon, a former senior director at the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, also noted, “This is the tip of the iceberg - it’s not a one-off incident.”

Ironically, rather than admitting its role in pervasive spying, Beijing claims to be the victim. In mid-August, the MSS posted on WeChat that it had uncovered more than 1,000 cases of Taiwanese espionage. In a “strike hard” crackdown, the ministry stated it had destroyed “a large number of spy intelligence networks” set up by Taiwan in mainland China. It “severely punished spies who carried out intelligence theft, infiltration and sabotage activities, in accordance with the law, effectively safeguarding the security of our country’s core secrets,” the MSS gleefully reported.

One person known to be arrested was Taiwanese political activist Yang Chih-yuan. Detained in Wenzhou in August 2022, Beijing accused him of being a Taiwan independence leader. The MSS said his arrest “dealt a heavy blow and become a strong deterrent” to pro-independence separatist forces. Sentenced to nine years in jail in late August, Yang is the first Taiwanese person sentenced by a Mainland court for secession.

The MSS added, “[We have] promptly thwarted the provocative plots of Taiwan independence separatists and external forces, effectively countering the intervention of foreign countries in the Taiwan Strait situation and meddling in the Taiwan issue.”

Earlier, two Canadians - former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor - were both detained by the MSS in December 2018 for “endangering national security”. Many saw their detention as retribution for Canada’s arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. They spent 1,019 days in prison, being released shortly after Meng was freed from house arrest in Canada. Their case illustrated how China is increasingly paranoid about Western influence, and how it also freely tramples on human rights in order to make political statements. Unfortunately, there is no paucity of Westerners and Chinese citizens willing to serve such a regime in order to gain financial or some other form of benefit. China’s big, red eye continues to roam as it hoovers up every scrap of intelligence it can. (ANI)

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