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| Sara Hsu |
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| Victor Shih |
In her response, Denham’s spokeswoman cited news reports that a staffer who once worked for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein had a connection to Chinese spying.
Victor Shih, an associate professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego, said, however, there’s no indication the staffer had any role in election interference.
Shih said another matter from the 1990s, and not cited by Denham’s office, does show one "clear case of China trying to influence elections."
In 1996, Johnny Chung, a Taiwanese-born California businessman, pleaded guilty to illegally funneling money from China to President Bill Clinton and the Democratic National Committee during Clinton’s re-election campaign.
Chung later testified before Congress that the donations included $35,000 from the head of China's military intelligence agency to Clinton’s successful reelection effort. The FBI even warned six members of Congress at the time: "We have reason to believe that the government of China may try to make contributions to members of Congress through Asian donors."
Shih and the other experts we contacted said, however, the Chung matter does not represent a widespread, persistent effort by China to interfere in U.S. elections. China is suspected, he added, of conducting a recent and broad political influence campaign in Australia.
"Meddling, of course, there are some cases of it (by China in the United States)," Shih said. "But to say that it’s pervasive or everywhere, I think it’s a bit of a stretch."More at Politifact.
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| Wendell Minnick |
Sun allegedly instructed HSI undercover agents to use the term “banana” to refer to carbon fiber in their communications. On April 11, Sun traveled from China to New York to purchase the carbon fiber and told HSI agents that the fiber was for the Chinese military. Sun also told agents that he had worked in the Chinese missile program as an employee of the China National Space Administration in Shanghai and had a close relationship with the military, according to the charge sheet.
“Sun paid the undercover agents $23,000 in cash for the carbon fiber. He also paid an additional $2,000 to undercover agents as compensation for the risk he believed they were taking to illegally export the carbon fiber to China without a license,” the government document says.
The HSI undercover operation included the creation of a front company with an online “showroom” of various products for sale. The “UC company” was not identified, but government documents indicate the front is in New York City.
Sun allegedly suggested several third countries to make the transaction, including Australia, Belgium and South Korea. Sun described a prior transaction in which he had acquired carbon fiber from a Korean supplier and in order to defeat Korean export controls, Sun and the Korean company had arranged to intentionally mislabel the carbon fiber as “acrylic fiber,” which was difficult to visually distinguish from carbon fiber. Sun instructed the undercover agents to “destroy the barcodes on every bundle … they won’t be able to trace where the merchandise … is really coming from,” the documents say.More in Defense News.
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| Wendell Minnick |
Over the past several years, Taiwan military officers have sold China information on the E-2K Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and PAC-2 anti-ballistic missile systems, Hawk air defense missile system, and the Raytheon Palm IR-500 radiometric infrared camera. Taiwan defense sources said that on the Taiwan side, China has collected all the data needed to compromise the Po Sheng C4I upgrade program and the Anyu-4 air defense network upgrade program, Shuan-Ji Plan (electronic warfare technology project), and the Wan Chien (Ten Thousand Swords) joint standoff weapon.
A common anecdote used by the Western media suggests China uses a “grains of sand” or “mosaic” approach to collecting intelligence. That is, China collects intelligence from a broad effort by low-level, often amateur, sources to form an overall picture. However, Chinese efforts in Taiwan indicate otherwise.More in Defense News.
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| Wendell Minnick |
As relations improve between Beijing and Taipei, military morale still continues to fall as fewer Taiwan military officers see a future in an ever-shrinking armed forces. Many are beginning to cash in on their intimate knowledge of military secrets, including classified information on US military equipment.
Over the past several years, Taiwan military officers have sold China information on the E-2K Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and PAC-2 anti-ballistic missile systems, Hawk air defense missile system, and the Raytheon Palm IR-500 radiometric infrared camera.
Taiwan defense sources said that on the Taiwan side, China has collected all the data needed to compromise the Po Sheng C4I upgrade program and the Anyu-4 air defense network upgrade program, Shuan-Ji Plan (electronic warfare technology project), and the Wan Chien (Ten Thousand Swords) joint standoff weapon.
A common anecdote used by the Western media suggests China uses a “grains of sand” or “mosaic” approach to collecting intelligence. That is, China collects intelligence from a broad effort by low-level, often amateur, sources to form an overall picture. However, Chinese efforts in Taiwan indicate otherwise.More in Defense News.
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| Wendell Minnick |
More in Defense News.Details of other aircraft and US companies are sketchy. Su is alleged to have obtained F-35 test plans and “blueprints” that would “allow us [China] to catch up rapidly with US levels ... [and] stand easily on the giant’s shoulders,” according to Su’s emails.A former US government counterintelligence analyst on China said the case is a “close parallel” to other cases involving Chinese businessmen “taking government information to ensure long-term success of [their] business.” He also said that Canada and Hong Kong were still popular technical transfer shipment points for Chinese industrial and military espionage.According to the complaint, one of Su’s emails states that his team “secured the authority to control the website of the ... missile developed jointly by India and Russia and that they would ‘await the opportunity to conduct internal penetration.’ ”Su also allegedly focused on military technology in Taiwan and files held by various Chinese “democracy” groups and the “Tibetan Independence Movement.” On Taiwan, the intelligence collected was focused on military maneuvers, military construction, warfare operation plans, strategic targets and espionage activities. According to one of the several emails, “we still have control on American companies like [identifying US companies] and etc. and the focus is mainly on those American enterprises which belong to the top 50 arms companies in the world.”One attachment listed 32 US military projects and another listed 80 engineers and program personnel working on a “military development project.” Another lists the names and email addresses for four people at a “European company that develops military navigation, guidance and control systems.”Cyber intrusions into Boeing and other companies were sophisticated. According to one of Su’s emails, they had control of an unidentified defense company’s file transfer protocol server. Jump servers, also known as “hop points,” were set up in France, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and the US. According to emails, these were set up to avoid “diplomatic and legal” difficulties for China.
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| Wendell Minnick |
The report, "The Chinese People's Liberation Army Signal Intelligence and Cyber Reconnaissance Infrastructure," by Mark Stokes and Jenny Lin of the Project 2049 Institute, Arlington, Va., provides the first overview of the PLA General Staff Department's Third Department, China's premier cryptologic service responsible for signals and cyber intelligence collection.
The Third Department is comparable to the U.S. National Security Agency and appears to be diversifying its traditional SIGINT mission to include cyber surveillance, also known as computer network exploitation (CNE), the report said.
The Third Department's Seventh Bureau (61580 Unit) is responsible for CNE. Headquartered in Beijing, the bureau's engineers specialize in computer network defense and attack, and have conducted joint studies with the PLA Information Engineering Academy Computer Network Attack and Defense Section. The bureau has been known to conduct research outlining U.S. network-centric warfare and dense wavelength-division multiplexing.
CNE also is conducted by the Technical Reconnaissance Bureaus (TRB), Stokes said: "A senior engineer from the Hainan office was granted awards for network-related work, including possible surveillance of Voice over Internet Protocol."...
China could be cracking down on its own cyber warfare activities. Lt. Gen. Wu Guohua, who directed the Third Department from 2005 to 2010, allegedly was transferred out due to unauthorized cyber attacks.
"If true, it appears that senior civilian leaders could have some understanding of the political damage caused by overt, hostile network penetration," Stokes said.
Another possible reason for the dismissal could be that the Third Department overstepped its area of responsibility.
The Chengdu Military Region's 1st Technical Reconnaissance Bureau also may be involved in cyber surveillance. The degree of control that the Third Department exercises over the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau bureaucracies of the country's seven military regions is unknown, but Third Department's resources dedicated to high-performance computing and its large arsenal of skilled linguists could comprise China's cryptologic "A-Team."More in Defense News
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| Wendell Minnick |
The report - "Foreign Spies Stealing U.S. Economic Secrets in Cyberspace: Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage, 2009-2011" - indicates the U.S. intelligence community judges the use of cyber tools is now a greater threat than more traditional espionage methods.
A recent Chinese espionage case in the U.S. contrasts the shift from traditional espionage tradecraft to today's cyber espionage techniques. Dongfan Chung, a former Boeing and Rockwell engineer who had worked on the B-1 bomber and space shuttle, was sentenced by a U.S. Federal Court in 2010 to 15 years for having 250,000 pages of sensitive documents in his home.
"This is suggestive of the volume of information Chung could have passed to his handlers between 1979 to 2006," the report said.
The logistics of handling the physical volume of so many documents, equal to "four 4-drawer filing cabinets," are staggering. However, according to the report, today the information could have easily fit onto a compact disc or transferred via e-mail. "Cyberspace makes possible the near instantaneous transfer of enormous quantities of economic and other information."..
China's intelligence services seek to "exploit" Chinese citizens or persons with family ties to China to recruit. Of the seven cases that were adjudicated under the Economic Espionage Act in 2010, six involved a link to China.
U.S. corporations and cyber security specialists have reported an "onslaught" of computer network intrusions originating from China. "Some of these reports have alleged a Chinese corporate or government sponsor of the activity," but the U.S. intelligence community has not been able to confirm these reports.More in Defense News.
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| Reuben F. Johnson |
Russia’s concerns with China begin with a fall-off in arms exports. Beginning in the 1990s, Russia enjoyed a brisk trade with China in sales of arms and defense technology, at the time a lifeline of badly needed revenue.
Sukhoi Su-27SK and Su-30MKK fighter jets, surface combatant warships and the effective Almaz-Antei S-300 air- and missile-defense systems sold to Beijing were major moneymakers for Moscow.
In recent years, however, Beijing’s purchases dwindled to a few specialized technologies — mainly fighter-jet engines, helicopters and air-defense systems. “These are the only remaining systems that the Chinese have not yet been able to illegally copy,” said a Moscow-based analyst who consults with Russian and EU national defense industry policymakers.
Now Mr. Putin wants to make it clear that defense technology fromRussia must be purchased by China and not stolen, the analyst said.
As if to send home the message, just prior to Mr. Putin’s visit, theRussian government arrested a Moscow-based Chinese national, Tun Shenyun. Mr. Tun was identified as a Ministry of State Security (MSS) spy operating under cover as a translator assisting visiting Chinese delegations.More in the Washington Times.
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| Wendell Minnick |
“When they catch a tourist spying, it's normally a tourist who fancies themselves as a spy,” Wendell Minnick, Asia Bureau Chief with Defense News, told Asia Sentinel.More in the Asia Sentinel
“They are living the fictive dream of cloak and dagger. They are not spies sent by the Chinese government. I call this stuff 'amateur hour' because that's about how long they last before getting picked up and shipped home.”
Chinese spies are already coming to Taiwanas disguised asv businessmen on multiple-entry visas, and while functioning as case officers, they handle long-term recruitment and servicing of recruited agents, Minnick said.
That doesn’t mean the would-be spies are necessarily harmless.
“There are concerns that as the number of tourists and other visitors increases over the next few months and years China will begin sending spies under tourist cover to Taiwan on acclimation visits to get familiar with the environment,” he said. “Then later, they send them over on regular assignments on business visas or fake third country passports from places like Macau, Hong Kong and Singapore.They are probably already sending a lot over using this method now.”
Ministry of Defense, Taipei via WikipediaMinistry of National Defense (MND)... officials announced his arrest Feb. 8, and said a damage assessment team is looking into how much Lo may have given China.More in Defense News.
U.S. officials are pressuring Taiwan to be more transparent about the damage allegedly caused by Lo. The consequences could include losing the Pentagon's confidence in Taiwan's ability to protect U.S. defense technologies sold to the self-rule island. Taiwan is pushing Washington hard for the release of new F-16 fighter aircraft and is awaiting delivery of Patriot PAC-3 air defense missile systems and P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft. All are technologies China is anxious to learn more about.
One former Taiwan defense attaché said the MND is unlikely to dig too deeply. There's a long tradition of "making a big issue small" (da shi hua xiao) in Taiwan's military bureaucracy, the former attaché said.
"Even if the top leader asks whoever is in charge of the investigation to be completely honest, from the second level down, people will most likely try to make it sound less serious," he said.
 Image by Fantake via Flickr |
| Wendell Minnick |
