Defection Spotlights Chinese Way of Spying
- From: "GWhyte" <gwhyte3003@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:01:22 -0400
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-espionage15jul15,1,4871850.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Defection Spotlights Chinese Way of Spying
Chen Yonglin says he oversaw 1,000 informers in Australia. Beijing is
believed to favor human intelligence over high-tech espionage.
By Mark Magnier, Times Staff Writer
BEIJING - The defection of a senior Chinese diplomat in Australia who
claims he helped oversee a vast spy network has cast a spotlight on
China's espionage activities at a time of increased global trade
tensions and concern over Beijing's military spending.
Chen Yonglin, the first secretary of the Chinese Consulate General in
Sydney, chose a particularly embarrassing moment to go public against
his employer - a rally last month in Australia marking the 16th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrators.
At an impromptu news conference shortly after Australia turned down his
request for political asylum, the bookish Chen announced that he'd
spent the last four years managing a network of 1,000 informants and
spies in Australia on behalf of the Chinese government.
Their primary target, he added, were members of Falun Gong, a
quasi-religious group banned in China as an "evil cult," and those
advocating independence for Tibet, Taiwan and East Turkmenistan.
Beijing immediately disputed his claims and similar charges by Hao
Fengjun, a second Chinese official applying for an Australian visa. The
allegations are "fabrication and lies," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu
Jianchao said in Beijing. "Sino-Australia relations should not pay a
price for two such people and two such incidents."
"We have some Chinese who don't like China that much and want to profit
for their own personal agenda," Fu Ying, China's ambassador to
Australia, said last week. Chen "now appears to be hating China so
much, but China offered him the best a young man can have."
The incident could reverberate beyond Australian shores, analysts said,
emboldening China's critics at a time when Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld and other Washington conservatives are expressing concern
about Beijing's intentions and questioning its growing military
spending.
The case has also embarrassed the government of Prime Minister John
Howard, which critics accuse of putting trade ahead of human rights to
avoid angering Beijing, a charge the administration denies. China is
Australia's third-largest trading partner, with annual bilateral
commerce worth $22.7 billion, and a voracious consumer of its natural
resources. The two nations are also discussing a free-trade agreement
to strengthen ties further.
Opposition lawmakers accused the Howard administration of immediately
informing the Chinese government when Chen submitted his application
and rejecting his request for a safe meeting place. Last Friday,
Australia granted Chen a permanent visa. Hao has petitioned for a
protection visa, and his case is now awaiting a decision.
Part of the equation, analysts said, is that neither Chen nor Hao -
who claims to have worked in the Chinese city of Tianjin at a security
office charged with stamping out Falun Gong before fleeing to Australia
- appears to be a huge intelligence catch.
"For Western intelligence agencies, knowing how China monitors Falun
Gong is not so important," said Steve Tsang, a China scholar at Oxford
University. "I suspect that's why they didn't grant Chen's first
application. If he was involved in a missile program or
counterespionage, that would probably be a different thing."
Like those of most countries, China's intelligence efforts employ a
system of concentric circles, analysts said. Unlike U.S. intelligence
agencies, with their reliance on satellite data and high technology,
China is known for its "humint," or human intelligence.
"They can and do send out thousands of people with limited tasking,
flooding the target country," said Larry M. Wortzel, a former U.S. Army
attache in Beijing now at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think
tank in Washington.
China has three kinds of spies, asylum-seeker Hao told Australian
reporters: "professional spies" paid to collect information, "working
relationship" spies operating in business circles and "friends" in less
formal networks, a category analysts said Chen's 1,000 spies would fall
into.
China employs a relatively small number of well-trained, professional
spies, intelligence analysts said, charged with digging up the most
sensitive military secrets and strategic policy.
In the second tier, China relies on well-placed front companies and
scientists to go after key technologies, including dual military and
civilian-use products that are easier to acquire than top-secret
military items.
"But you use dual-use or trading companies as far from the embassy as
possible," said an intelligence expert who declined to be identified.
"They're a big radioactive tag."
In one recent case, a Chinese American couple in Wisconsin was arrested
on suspicion of selling China $500,000 worth of computer parts with
potential applications in enhanced missile systems.
But it's China's biggest concentric ring that often garners the most
attention. Beijing is known for gathering small bits of information
from "friends" - Chinese businesspeople, students, scientists, trade
delegations and tourists traveling overseas - which it assembles into
a bigger picture.
"They spread a rather wide net," said James R. Lilley, a former CIA
station chief and U.S. ambassador to China. "It's often a rather
blurred line between 'cooperator' and 'undercover agent.' "
.
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