Posted on 09/21/2014 8:06:39 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Intelligence agencies around the world typically regard China’s approach to spying as sloppy and unprofessional. While many other countries focus on stealth and finesse for espionage, China’s focus is on mass numbers.
While regarded as unprofessional, China’s approach has also been extremely effective. The challenge posed by China comes down to a simple fact: it has too many spies for foreign intelligence agencies to keep track of.
“Our nation is overwhelmed. The problem is too big,” said Paul Williams in a phone interview. Williams is chief information officer at BlackOps Partners Corporation, which does counterintelligence and protection of trade secrets and competitive advantage for Fortune 500 companies.
Student spies—often college kids—play a fundamental role in this system. They help bolster a system of espionage where each person does a small share of the work. It’s based on the idea that you could have one spy steal 10,000 documents, or you could have 10,000 spies each steal one document.
By taking the approach of mass numbers for espionage, the Chinese regime has U.S. intelligence agencies outnumbered. In terms of both keeping tabs on their activities, and prosecuting Chinese spies, the United States can’t keep up.
The idea behind recruiting students as spies, according to Williams, is “if you can groom them in college” then they can be used to gain access to research at universities. After college, he added, “You can pick those students then follow their careers into corporate America.”
The Chinese regime can work spies recruited in college into positions in research, government agencies, or U.S. companies.
According to Williams many Chinese spies are not official spies. “Yes, you have those hardcore Chinese spies, but those are usually the minority,” he said. “The majority are just people who get asked to do something on the side.”
According to sources, the grooming process typically takes place before the students leave to study abroad. They may get approached by Chinese security officials who remind them to remain loyal to the motherland, and ask them to report back with anything that could benefit China.
For them, spying is often viewed as a matter of patriotic duty.
Williams said the approach typically works because the Chinese spy agencies don’t ask the students for much. The individual contribution, he noted, is often so minuscule that many may not even think of what they’re doing as espionage.
Spies of a Different Type
It’s because of China’s broad-brush approach to espionage that Chinese spies are typically regarded as sloppy and careless by other security agencies.
Williams said that in the spy world, three rules are followed: “Don’t get caught, don’t get caught, and don’t get caught.” Most other countries have elaborate precautions in place to ensure their agents don’t get caught.
With China, the rules are different. “They just lie if they get caught,” Williams said. “It’s surprising how few precautions they take and how many risks they take.”
He added, however, that the approach has been shockingly effective. “The Chinese are getting everything,” he said.
“What makes it even harder is that you’re not sure what they got,” he said, noting that China’s approach of mass spying means they often get the same documents multiple times.
“It’s a very complicated network,” said Lu Dong, a former Chinese agent of influence in New York who is now an outspoken critic of the Chinese regime.
Lu said China’s low-level spy operations are run through its United Front Work Department, and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. He said high-level operations that require more finesse are run through the Chinese military’s General Staff Department, 3rd Department.
Lu said, “They only send the high ranking spies,” and noted that the 3rd Department has upward of 200,000 personnel.
China’s military spy hackers, Unit 61398, are under the 3rd Department’s 2nd Bureau, according to a report from security company Mandiant.
Spying Down Under
The United States isn’t alone in its dilemma of how to defend against China’s mass approach to spying. A similar situation was recently reported in Australia.
China is running spy networks through student associations in Australian universities. These networks are then spying on other Chinese students, pressuring them, and joining activities to defend the Chinese regime’s interests.
News of the spy networks is circulating through some of Australia’s leading newspapers, after The Sydney Morning Herald broke the story.
It reported that Australian spy agencies can’t keep up with the number of Chinese spies, and the Australian government is increasing its counterintelligence capabilities in light of the issue.
The spies are not only used for stealing information, however. They’re also used to keep tabs on individuals critical of the Chinese regime.
The Sydney Morning Herald quotes an unnamed lecturer at a high-ranking Australian university saying he was interrogated four times in China over comments he made at a democracy seminar in an Australian university. “They showed me the report,” the lecturer said. “I can even name the lady who sent the report.”
Such incidents, it reported, are common in Australian universities where Chinese students and professors need to be careful what they say.
Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese diplomat at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, told Epoch Times when he defected in 2005 there were more than 1,000 Chinese secret agents operating in Australia, alone.
If Chen’s estimates are true, then consider the situation in the United States, which has more than 14 times the population of Australia and much more military and commercial data to pique the interests of China’s spy army.
“There are so many assets of the Chinese here, there is such a large number,” Williams said. “No other spy agency on the planet has anything even close.”
Chen, who himself had participated in China’s spy operations in Australia, told The Sydney Morning Herald that student spies were “useful for welcoming leaders at airports and blocking protest groups from sight, and also collecting information.”
When Chen defected, he brought secret documents with him. One of the documents was a to-do list for the consulate, and detailed how the consulate used its student spy networks to carry out the Chinese regime’s orders overseas.
Among the other roles carried out by the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, according to the leaked documents, were bribing Chinese media, recruiting new students to join its spy networks, and infiltrating Western politics.
Of course, China isn’t just interested in Chinese students for its spy operations.
In April, the FBI started a public information campaign warning U.S. students traveling abroad to be wary of intelligence networks interested in recruiting them as spies.
The FBI released a video telling the story of Glenn Shriver, an American student who was recruited by Chinese spies while studying in Shanghai. He was later caught and sentenced to four years in prison in 2011 after his spy handlers tried getting him into the CIA.
As the FBI pointed out in its educational materials, students studying abroad are prime candidates for positions in government and in large companies. The intelligence agents of China and other nations target students for this reason.
Chinese intelligence agencies want the students to become their insiders in government and in large companies—particularly those with government contracts. The spying operations that reel people in like this are called “seeding operations.”
“To foster the relationship, foreign intelligence operatives will flatter and encourage students, show interest in their future success, and even promise to help them obtain a government-issued visa or work permit—but it’s all disingenuous and empty promises,” said Mollie Halpern, at the FBI Office of Public Affairs in an FBI podcast.
Halpern said, “The truth is, the operatives are just using the student as a pawn to achieve their own ends, without concern for the student’s welfare or future.”
There is a huge cache of information that is publicly available. Just by reading trade magazines, the Chinese can probably get at least 70% of everything they need.
They would only need a few sophisticated spies to get the other 30%.
I don't know what these Chinese students can steal. But they sure do influence the grading curve in science classes.
Quick story. I once worked as a university security guard. I liked the holiday shifts because they were time and a half. The campus was empty, except for the Chines students. They were still hard at work in the labs and in the research libraries. No fooling around or down time with them.
That’s true.
Again, effective border control and immigration policies would solve the issue.
If they greet Chinese dignitaries at airports and other public places and block protesters, even if they are students I would say as far as spies go, yeah, that’s pretty unprofessional.
Cheerleaders maybe.
If the country where the airport/public event is located has people reading articles like this one and know that these ‘cheerleaders’ are actually spies, wouldn’t they be subject to counter-espionage?
I don’t know how many times back in the ‘60s and ‘70s I heard and read about Soviet moles burrowing into American society so they could steal the recipe for Coca Cola or KFC’s secret spices. Yeah, whatever you say MSM.
I don’t think you really want to know that answer to that one.
New world order sets up student exchanges, scholarships, etc.
Explore the websites of United Nations, Rockefeller foundations, Rhodes Scholar and other elite British programs, World Bank, thousands of other foundations, the US State Dept, etc.
George Soros (minor financial minion) founded his own university in Eastern Europe.
This is how nwo trains their children and any minions that work for them.
All Ivy League and other elite schools are nwo schools.
All the top level folks in EVERY Presidential administration (people like Geithner, etc.) are all trained as nwo minions in elite schools.
Amongst all these schools, they love have “study abroad” to get their children and proteges foreign relations experience.
American elites have been sending their kids to China for education and start of their careers for a number of years. Nice thing to brag about at cocktail parties, “my kid is fluent in Mandarin and works in or around China”.
I was on campus when the first Chinese students arrived in my dorm around 1980. Two males and a female. They all wore Mao suits. One of the guys was thin and taller, the other guy and girl were shorter and heavier.
They were fully exposed to “Animal House” atmosphere of the time.
Within a few years the Chinese were moved into apartment style housing more segregated from the rest of the student population.
I lived next door to a large number of them during the late ‘80s. An English instructor said that she was a PLA captain.
During the 90’s they didn’t need even that.
Bill Clinton gave them, under orders, unrestricted access to picatinney arsenal.
Even better, the arsenal was not told to expect visitors, and was only made aware of the Chinese delegation at the same time as they arrived.
Yeah, cover sensitive items now..
I wonder what Obama is doing.
Some defense projects begin in universities with students.
It would be research.
Doesn’t bother me if I were to be called a bigot - I know what I am.
I wouldn’t waste energy by saying ‘no I’m NOT!’
Usually, attempting to call one a bigot is a hope to shut down the conversation.
If I were ever called a bigot, my first reaction would be to have one big hearty laughing guffaw. And then add a remark like: ‘Get over yourself.’
When I was at U of California ages ago, it was my distinct impression that nearly all the Chinese students, and professors alike, were spies. I got that impression when I noticed how reliably you could get a rise out of them by slipping something mildly negative about China into the conversation, which I came to enjoy doing.
A professional wouldn't bat an eye if you told him his country was crap and its leaders murderers, much less negatively react at some slight offhand criticism. But it was pretty easy to make the Chinese nationals here on student visas quite upset if you insinuated that some aspect of American life was superior to theirs. Predictable and transparent as hell. They should all be sent packing.
We had a Chinese male student in our high school class in the mid ‘50’s.
What I can remember, I believe he had lived in Communist China, and escaped. Probably not just himself, but what do I know??!
I think school was hard for him, not knowing much English.
I do remember him smiling shyly now and again.
It did not seem he was being groomed at all to be a ‘plant’ or anything. He did nothing to draw attention to himself, and I think he had some enjoyable moments in school. Most likely when a teacher treated him fairly, and didn’t sluff him off. Ditto regarding any of us.
Wish now I knew more about him. I don’t even know where he lived, in our town on Long Island. But I didn’t know where most of my classmates lived.
Back then, starting after WWII, the Long Island potato and other farms were selling to real estate developers: witness Levittown.
Some years ago when I was back for a reunion, my high school town was occupied by many folks from India. I do not know what drew them there - probably relatives - but what drew the first arrivals??! So goes the ebb and flow of immigration. And the businesses the immigrants own.
Well, in the case of the Univ of Cincinnati back in the mid 80's, it was the taxpayer footing the bill. The Mathematics department gave all the graduate assistantships ( included full tuition and a yearly stipend - paid for by the state of Ohio ) to "students" from China. Most of these "students" already had advanced degrees. The head of the graduate department had the gall, in an interview in the Wall Street Journal for an article about why so many TA's in the US were foreign students, to say that there were plenty of scholarships, but no US students apply - when there were at least 6 of us that applied and were qualified, but were turned down because there were "no scholarships available". ( Incidentally, this same professor received an all paid full year sabbatical at a university in China 2 years later )
Quoth Johnny Chung:
“I see the White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates.”
I wonder if we F with other countries in the same ways?
Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
They pay the full tab, extravagant as it may be. Which is why universities love and court them. Which is why there arent as many spaces for American students at the state university our taxes help finance, so that the Americans may have to go to private colleges, with resultant expense. At least that's the way it is in my state.
And attach a green card to all their degrees when graduated from American universities.
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