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Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 21:51:42 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] news
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Chinese espionage handbook details ease of swiping secrets
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 26, 2000
China's government is engaged in large-scale science and technology
spying targeted primarily on gaining U.S. defense secrets for military
use, according to a translated Chinese government manual.
The spying handbook was obtained by the Pentagon earlier this year and
reveals how Beijing gathers defense intelligence and has been doing so
aggressively for more than 30 years.
"A common saying has it that there are no walls which completely block
the wind, nor is absolute secrecy achievable," the book by two Chinese
intelligence specialists states.
"And invariably there will be numerous open situations in which things
are revealed, either in tangible or intangible form. By picking here
and there among the vast amount of public materials and accumulating
information a drop at a time, often it is possible to basically reveal
the outlines of some secret intelligence, and this is particularly
true in the case of Western countries. Through probability analysis,
in foreign countries it is believed that 80 percent or more of
intelligence can be gotten through public materials."
The 250-page book, "Sources and Techniques of Obtaining National
Defense Science and Technology Intelligence," is not classified.
However, Pentagon officials said its contents provide new insights on
how China's government obtains secrets and technology.
The book was written by Huo Zhongwen and Wang Zongxiao, 30-year spy
veterans who now teach intelligence at the China National Defense,
Science and Technology Information Center (DSTIC) in Beijing.
The center coordinates sharing of technology from some 4,000 Chinese
intelligence organizations.
"The Chinese do not spy as God intended it," said Paul Moore, a former
FBI intelligence analyst who specialized in Beijing spying activities.
China uses a variety of collectors students, business people,
scientists or visitors abroad instead of relying on professional
intelligence officers working for the Ministry of State Security or
the People's Liberation Army Second Department, he said.
Most often, Beijing's intelligence services do not pay cash for
secrets and expect people friendly to the Communist government, many
of whom are ethnic Chinese, to provide it free of charge, Mr. Moore
said during a recent speech.
The book describes Chinese information-gathering as a science.
"Consider information piece by piece; place an excessive, one-sided
emphasis on the absolute amount of the information collected; gauge
the quality of collection work solely on the basis of the amount of
information collected," it states.
The book contradicts official Chinese claims that its high-technology
weapons development is indigenous.
Beijing has dismissed U.S. government charges that its nuclear weapons
modernization program is based on stolen U.S. nuclear weapons
technology, most obtained from U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories.
According to the spying manual, more than 80 percent of all Chinese
spying focuses on open-source material obtained from government and
private-sector information. The remaining 20 percent is gathered
through illicit means, including eliciting information from scientists
at meetings, through documents supplied by agents or through
electronic eavesdropping.
Through negligence on the part of security review personnel, valuable
secrets can be obtained.
The book states that a "Top Secret" scientific report known as
"UCRL-4725 Weapons Development, June 1956" was mistakenly declassified
by Los Alamos National Laboratory. It became the basis for Progressive
magazine's 1979 article on the development of a hydrogen bomb.
"This incident tells us that, on one hand, absolute secrecy is not
attainable, while on the other hand, there is a random element
involved in the discovery of secret intelligence sources, and to turn
this randomness into inevitability, it is necessary that there be
those who monitor some sectors and areas with regularity and
vigilance," the book states.
Among the best sources for national defense intelligence material, the
book lists publications from Congress, the National Defense Technical
Information Center and the National Technical Information Service.
As for numerous reports produced by the Energy Department, the Chinese
view them as "a source of intelligence of great value."
Regarding clandestine spying, the report states: "It is also necessary
to stress that there is still 20 percent or less of our intelligence
that must come through the collection of information using special
means, such as reconnaissance satellites, electronic eavesdropping and
the activities of special agents purchasing or stealing, etc."
Through direct contacts with scientists and other spying targets, the
report states that "this is the procedure commonly used for collecting
verbal information, but it is not limited to verbal communications.
Participation in consultative activities is also a person-to-person
exchange procedure for collecting information."
The information is gathered from people and institutions, including
government agencies, research offices, corporate enterprises, colleges
and universities, libraries, and information offices.
A report produced by the National Counterintelligence Center, an
interagency group based at CIA headquarters, called the Chinese
military and defense industry's use of unclassified information "one
of the most startling revelations" of the book.
The two-part report, issued in the center's June and September
newsletters, suggests the release of the spying manual, first reported
by Far Eastern Economic Review magazine, may have been a mistake on
the part of the secretive Chinese national security bureaucracy.
A second theory is that "China's commitment to expropriating foreign
technology is so much a part of its [research and development] culture
that the book's authors simply took acceptance of this behavior for
granted," the report said.
The report described the book as extraordinary "detailed proof" of
China's efforts to obtain foreign defense technology "by the people
who helped build China's worldwide intelligence network."
"Incredible as it seems, this frank account of China's long-standing
program to siphon off Western military science and technology, written
as a textbook for PRC intelligence officers, was sold openly in China
for years," the report said. "But you will not find the book in any
bookstore or Chinese library today."
The book "represents the first public acknowledgment by PRC officials
of China's program to collect secret and proprietary information on
foreign military hardware, especially that of the United States," the
report said.
Chinese defense technology spying increased during the 1960s when the
People's Republic of China (PRC) developed its nuclear arsenal and
then fell during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution when collected
research material was put in warehouses and "consumed by mice instead
of humans," the book said.
Since 1978, high-technology spying grew sharply under China's national
development plan.
I.C. Smith, a retired FBI agent who specialized in Chinese spying,
said the FBI severely curtailed its counterspy efforts Chinese
counterspying in particular during the Clinton administration.
"The shortsighted view of the PRC, a view held by those with little
intellectual capacity for counterintelligence, is that China doesn't
pose a threat," Mr. Smith said in an interview. "After all, they
aren't out there making dead drops, communicating via shortwave radio,
paying cash concealed in hollow rocks, et cetera, as is the expected
norm for the spy business."
"This view became dominant in the FBI and even to a large extent, the
intelligence community, and this resulted in the FBI essentially
de-emphasizing counterintelligence, in general, and the China
[counterintelligence] program, in particular. This led directly to the
debacle of the Wen Ho Lee investigation," Mr. Smith said.
Lee, the Los Alamos nuclear-weapons designer, was suspected of passing
nuclear warhead secrets to China. Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty
to lesser charges of mishandling classified data on computer tapes
that are missing and agreed to tell what he knew to the FBI.
As part of the Lee investigation, FBI agents recently dug up computer
tapes from a Los Alamos landfill, but later determined the tapes did
not contain the secrets Lee took from the laboratory.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/default-20001226232548.htm
--
Fred Cohen at Sandia National Laboratories at tel:925-294-2087 fax:925-294-1225
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Fred Cohen - Practitioner in Residence - The University of New Haven
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