China's Spy Games

Security: The Pentagon report warning that Beijing is amassing high-tech missiles leaves out another alarming domestic security issue: massive Chinese spying.

Forget about the Russian spy ring the FBI broke up that stole mostly headlines (as opposed to U.S. secrets) for their amateurish methods. This is no joke. These Chinese moles mean business. And they're stealing highly sensitive military secrets.

At least 44 of them have been quietly prosecuted in the last two years alone — a figure that dwarfs the number of Russian spies expelled last month. And those are just the ones we've caught.

The Chinese agents are serving time in federal prison on espionage-related charges. They stole sensitive weapons technology, trade secrets and other classified information bound for China. Some of the cases involve agents operating on behalf of the Chinese government or intelligence.

Earlier this month, a former B-2 stealth bomber engineer in Hawaii was convicted of selling military secrets to China. He sold stealth cruise missile technology to Beijing during trips there.

The growing espionage threat comes on the heels of the administration's decision last year to downgrade our own intelligence gathering on China from "Priority 1" status, alongside Iran and North Korea, to "Priority 2." The decision sent shock waves throughout the U.S. intelligence community, according to China expert Bill Gertz.

So while China has deployed an army of agents to spy on us, we've reined in our spooks. That means our intelligence about China's military buildup will only suffer, adding to an already dangerous gap there.

"China has exceeded most of our intelligence estimates of their military capability and capacity every year," said Adm. Robert Willard, the new commander of U.S. Pacific Command. "They've grown at an unprecedented rate in those capabilities."

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NOTE The following text is a quote:

www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=60461

U.S. Wants Renewed Military Contacts with China

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2010 – Resumption of military-to-military contacts between the United States and China is in both countries’ best interests, senior defense officials said yesterday.

The officials, speaking on background about a new report delivered to Congress yesterday, also said the Chinese have not been as transparent as they could be about their military transformation program, leaving the Sino-U.S. dialogue open to misunderstanding and miscommunications that could lead to miscalculations.
The congressionally mandated annual report, titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010,” was released on a day when officials announced China has surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. China should have a gross domestic product of just over $5 trillion this year. The United States has the world’s largest economy, with just over $15 trillion.

The booming Chinese economy is a good thing for the world, the report says, noting that the Chinese middle class is growing by leaps and bounds. The economic expansion has given the Chinese government the money needed to transform its military.
“We welcome a strong, prosperous and successful China,” a senior defense official said, noting that a strong China has played an increasingly important role on the international stage.

“At the same time,” the official added, “the Chinese government has embarked on a mission to transform its military into a modern force capable of conducting a growing range of military missions.”

A decade ago, China’s army issued a new roles and missions statement that goes beyond the country’s immediate territorial interests. Some of the growth is good: China is participating in humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, search and rescue and counterpiracy missions. At the same time, “the lack of transparency around China’s growing capabilities and its intentions have raised questions about Chinese investments in the military and security sphere,” the official said.
This worries planners and strategists in the Pentagon. The Chinese have not been open about anti-access capabilities they are developing, about cyber attacks, or even about the cost of their military effort, officials said.

In March, Chinese army leaders announced a 7.5 percent increase in the country’s military budget to about $78.6 billion. “The [Defense Department] estimate of China’s total military-related spending for 2009 stands at some $150 billion,” the senior defense official said.

“The complexity of the regional and global security environment, as well as the advances in China’s military capabilities and its expanding military operations and mission, call for a stable, reliable and continuous dialogue between the armed forces of the United States and China to expand practical cooperation where our national interests converge and to discuss candidly those areas where we have disagreement,” the senior defense official said. “Such dialogue is especially important, we believe, during periods when there is friction and turbulence.”

The Chinese ended the military-to-military dialogue with the United States after the United States sold $6.4 billion in defensive weapons to Taiwan in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. It was the second such halt in recent years.

Last year — the year covered by the new report — Sino-U.S. military-to-military relations were good. But the on-again, off-again nature of China’s engagement with the U.S. military ended the period of civility and progress in the military-to-military relationship.

The stop-and-go cycle limits the areas the two militaries can discuss. Even more troubling given China’s increasing military capabilities, this cycle increases the risk that miscommunication and misperception could lead to miscalculation, the official said.

“Moreover, we believe that it is in our mutual interests … that we have a balanced and reciprocal dialogue allowing us to build mutual trust, cooperative capacity, institutional understanding, and develop common views, all of those things on our normal checklist, and that there is a real cost to the absence of military-military relations,” the official said.

The United States has tried to restart the contacts. It is now up to China to make the next move and “demonstrate that it is in their interest to stay in that relationship and that they desire to sustain these engagements through periods of turbulence,” the official said.

In the near term, the Chinese are preparing for a Taiwan contingency. China also is developing the capability to attack at long range military forces operating in the Western Pacific. The capability still is limited, but it can grow in numbers and accuracy, the official said.

China has the most active ballistic and cruise missile development program in the world. The Chinese are developing new classes of missiles, upgrading others and working on countering ballistic missile defenses.

At sea, China’s navy has the largest force of principal combatant submarines and amphibious warfare ships in Asia. China continues to invest heavily in nuclear-powered submarines and diesel electric boats. It’s also building an aircraft carrier and other combatant surface ships.

The Chinese are also developing space and cyber capabilities, pursuing the ability to dominate across the spectrum of information in all its dimensions on modern battle space, the official said.

“China’s investment in advanced electronic warfare systems, counterspace weapons and computer network operations reflect the emphasis and priority China’s leaders place on building capability in these areas,” the senior defense official said.

Related Sites:
Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010
Transcript

Related Articles:
Report Says Chinese Military Transparency Still Lacking

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Previously...

NOTE The following text is a quote:

www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=60456

Report Says Chinese Military Transparency Still Lacking

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2010 – China has made some progress, but not enough, in military transparency, and the Chinese decision to suspend military-to-military contacts with the United States is acting against the interests of both countries, according to the latest annual report in a congressionally mandated series.

Defense Department officials released “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” today.

China is developing into an economic superpower, and that growth is allowing the Chinese government to invest more in its military. China has embarked on a massive effort to modernize its military and transform its structure, doctrine and strategy, according to the report.

The pace of the transformation effort has increased in the last 10 years, and China’s military capabilities have developed to influence events well beyond its borders. The Chinese army now can contribute to international peacekeeping efforts, humanitarian assistance and counterpiracy operations. The United States welcomes these capabilities, and wants to work with China to develop them further, the report says.

However, the report says, other capabilities are more disturbing. China is investing in anti-access technologies that would force U.S. naval and air forces farther from Chinese shores, and has fielded large numbers of short- and intermediate-range missiles and cruise missiles.

The Chinese navy has a potent mix of surface ships and submarines and is working to develop naval air wings to operate off an aircraft carrier China bought from the Ukraine in 1998. The Chinese could begin work on an indigenous carrier this year, the report says.

The Chinese army has 1.25 million in the ground forces and is upgrading its formations with new tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers. The army also is stressing command and control capabilities, joint air and ground coordination, and assault operations.

China also is building space and cyber assets, the report says, and the Chinese are still building and launching intelligence satellites.

China’s cyber attack capabilities are a mystery, the report acknowledges.
“In 2009, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be the target of intrusions that appear to have originated within the [People’s Republic of China],” the report says, noting that the intrusions seek military and commercial information.
“The accesses and skills required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct computer network attack,” the report says.

Because no one outside China really knows where the Chinese military buildup will end, transparency in the goals of the transformation would go far in reassuring regional countries and global partners, the report says.

In addition, the report says, “The limited transparency in China’s military and security affairs enhances uncertainty and increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.”

Obama has said he understands that China and the United States may sometimes have difficult relations, “but the notion that we must be adversaries is not predestined.”

Sustained and reliable U.S.-China military-to-military relations reduce mistrust, enhance mutual understanding and broaden cooperation, the report says.

Related Sites:
Report: Military and Security Deployments Involving the People’s Republic of China

Years? More like decades. Since Chinese agents have been coming here in the Eighties, they have attempted to steal information and technology, even the most inconsequential. Early attempts were laughable; you could pick out the agents by their attire (PLA shoes) and vocabulary (typical Chinese Communist Party dogma) among Chinese. As a person whose parents emigrated to the US in the Forties, I was taught to be fairly discrete among FOBs (fresh of the boat). However, many of my non-Chinese friends were downright blabbermouths believing all that crap about universal understanding and advancement.

Let’s just say that whenever they got too nosy about anything, even concrete, I contacted certain interested parties in our government.

Many think that the CCP would use young undergrad students as spies and agents; this is not true since the young are pretty unreliable. It’s usually the married “doctoral” or PhD. candidates and immigrant businesspeople in their thirties or early forties who make more reliable spies. The Chinese also prefer someone who has been here a while and established valuable relationships.

In addition, like their Russian counterparts, they have learned sex is a very useful tool in getting what they want. If it was up to me, I’d do security checks on a couple of chic Chinese women who married US bankers in the past few years.

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2572662/posts

China Targets U.S.
IBD Editorials ^ | August 17, 2010 | Investors Business Daily staff
Posted on August 17, 2010 7:53:28 PM PDT by Kaslin

Defense: A Pentagon report suppressed by the administration describes a massive Chinese military buildup that has only one purpose: to deny us access to the Western Pacific and destroy American forces that try.

The required annual report to Congress on China’s military power was finally released Monday amid questions of why the document, due in March, was delayed five months. With the Ground Zero mosque dominating the news, maybe now was considered a good time to sneak the grim news past the American people.

Perhaps it was to avoid offending the sensibilities of the country helping to finance the Obama administration’s unconscionable debt. Maybe it was delayed to avoid questions as to why, with this growing threat, we are unilaterally disarming, shredding our nuclear inventory and canceling major weapons systems America needs to defend itself.

We have commented extensively on China’s growing threat, and this report, coming alongside news that China has passed Japan as the world’s second largest economy, confirms our worst fears as China builds a military far beyond its legitimate defense needs.

The 2010 report, curiously renamed the “Annual Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” speaks of China’s program to deny U.S. forces access to regions it considers critical to its security.

“China is fielding an array of conventionally armed ballistic missiles, ground- and air-launched cruise missiles, special operations forces and cyberwarfare capabilities to hold targets at risk throughout the region,” the report says. These targets would be American bases and carrier battle groups that might be sent to aid Taiwan.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

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