Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War With China (45 page)
Read Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War With China Online
Authors: David Wise
Tags: #Political Science, #International Relations, #General
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"are clearly linked to Chinese foreign and defence policy":
Information Warfare Monitor,
Tracking GhostNet,
p. 52.
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"trace back in at least several instances to Hainan Island":
Ibid.
235Perhaps the strongest evidence linking China to cyberspying against the US was provided by WikiLeaks: James Glanz and John Markoff, "Vast Hacking by a China Fearful of the Web,"
New York Times
, December 4, 2010,
http://www.ny times.com/2010/12/05/world/asia/05wikileaks-china.html
;
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/28/world/20101128-cables-viewer.html#report/china -99BEIJING999
.
22. AN AFTERWORD
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The technology giant threatened to pull out of China:
Andrew Jacobs and Miguel Helft, "Google May End Venture in China Over Censorship,"
New York Times,
January 13, 2009, p. A1.
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Google turned to the National Security Agency:
John Markoff, "Google Asks Spy Agency for Help with Inquiry Into Cyberattacks,"
New York Times,
February 5, 2010.
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[Footnote] Six months later:
David Barboza and Miguel Helft, "A Compromise Allows Both China and Google to Claim Victory,"
New York Times
, July 10, 2010, p. B1.
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A week went by before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a speech calling for global "Internet freedom":
Cecilia Kang, "Clinton Calls for Internet Freedom,"
Washington Post,
January 22, 2010, p. A14.
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Clinton's "groundless accusations" were "harmful to US-China relations":
Steven Mufson, "Chinese Government Hits Back against Clinton's Call for Internet Freedom,"
Washington Post,
January 23, 2010, p. A14.
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China held more than a trillion dollars of US debt:
Department of the Treasury, "Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities,"
www.treas.gov
, and Department of the Treasury, Office of Public Affairs. Data as of September 2009 consists of $798.9 billion in Treasury bonds, bills, and notes, plus agency securities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as private sector corporate bonds.
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"After
PARLOR MAID
, one of the procedures we put in place, you should not run a source for more than a couple of years":
Rudy Guerin interview, July 22, 2009.
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"when working espionage and someone sets up a US citizen, you can't do that":
Ibid.
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"We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S.":
Michael Wines, Keith Bradsher, and Mark Landler, "China's Premier Seeks Guarantee from U.S. on Debt,"
New York Times,
March 14, 2009.
[>]
"China is stealing our secrets":
Agence France-Presse, "Chinese Spying a 'Substantial' Concern: FBI Chief," July 26, 2007.
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"Penetrating the US intelligence community is a key objective of the Chinese":
Report to Congress on Chinese Espionage Activities against the United States,
1999, p. 1,
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/fis/prc_1999.html
.
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"the Chinese are surpassing the Russians":
Harry J. Godfrey III, quoted in William Overend, "China Seen Using Close U.S. Ties for Espionage,"
Los Angeles Times,
November 20, 1988, Metro, p. 1.
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they have encouraged people to apply to the CIA:
In October 2010, Glenn D. Shriver, a 28-year-old Michigan man, pleaded guilty to accepting $70,000 from Chinese intelligence officers to try to get a job with the CIA or other government agencies that would provide him access to secret documents. Shriver, according to government documents, applied to the CIA and spent two years going through the agency's hiring process. He was approached by Chinese intelligence while living as a student in Shanghai.
[>]
"It's pervasive, ubiquitous, constant":
Porter J. Goss interview, September 4, 2009.
[>]
"You can get to know the dragon by its claw":
Neil A. Lewis, "Spy Cases Raise Concern on China's Intentions,"
New York Times,
July 10, 2008, p. A1.
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"They're in our knickers and there's maybe one under the couch":
Interview with Harold M. Agnew, conducted by Mary Palevsky, Nevada Test Site Oral History Project, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, October 10, 2005, p. 36.
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"There are no walls which completely block the wind":
This and the other quotations from the handbook are in Huo Zhongwen and Wang Zongxiao,
Sources and Techniques of Obtaining National Defense Science and Technology Intelligence
[Guofang Keji Qingbaoyuan ji Huoqu Jishu] (Beijing: Kexue Jishu Wenxuan Publishing Co., 1991), chap. 4, sec. 5, par. VII. The publication of this handbook for intelligence gathering was first disclosed in Bruce Gilley, "China's Spy Guide: A Chinese Espionage Manual Details the Means by which Beijing Gathers Technology and Weapons Secrets from the United States,"
Far Eastern Economic Review
162, no. 51 (December 23, 1999), p. 14. The term
qingbaoyuan
used in the title and text can mean both "information" and "intelligence." But the preface and eight chapters make clear that much of the contents relates to intelligence collection. It also contains an astonishingly detailed list of books, materials, and publications available from Congress, the Pentagon, NASA, and DOE, and notes that subscriptions to most are maintained by one or more of the five Chinese agencies involved in science and technology. The full text, in English translation, can be found on the website of the Federation of American Scientists:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/china/docs/sources.html
.
Footnotes
* Walker was arrested May 20, 1985, pleaded guilty, and was convicted and sentenced in 1986 to life in prison, as were his brother Arthur and friend Jerry A. Whitworth. Walker's son Michael was sentenced to twenty-five years. All had served in the Navy. Boris A. Solomatin, a gray-haired man with hawklike features, was the KGB
rezident
in Washington in the mid-1960s when Walker appeared in the Soviet embassy to offer his services. Interviewed by the author in Moscow in 1991, Solomatin was asked when he knew for sure that Walker was not a plant. "After he showed me the code keys," Solomatin replied.
***
* According to the Census Bureau survey released in December 2010, of the total of 3,204,379 Chinese in the United States, 994,041 are native born and 1,342,973 are naturalized US citizens, so a total of 2,337,014, or 72.9 percent, are American citizens.
***
* It is commonly assumed that the CIA is confined to operating overseas and the FBI to activities in the United States. In reality, the lines are blurred. The FBI has attachés in seventy-five foreign cities and, as the
PARLOR MAID
case illustrates, it can run intelligence agents abroad. Although by law the CIA has no police, law enforcement, or internal security powers, it maintains offices in major cities across America that recruit foreign students, debrief travelers returning from places of interest overseas, and conduct other operations related to foreign intelligence.
***
* More than three decades later, the islands were still a flashpoint. Tensions flared anew over the Diaoyutai/Senkakus in September 2010 when Japan's coast guard arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler whose boat collided with the Japanese patrol vessels in the disputed waters near the islands. The Chinese captain was released after sixteen days, but the incident touched off mass protests in China and angry diplomatic exchanges between the two countries.
***
* In Chinese, the Mandarin word for "secret agent" or "spy" is
jiandie,
although
pengyou,
which means "friend," is also commonly used. For "double agent,"
shuangmian,
two characters representing two faces are added. Thus,
shuangmian jiandie
would describe a double-faced spy.
***
* The Department of Energy defines
SECRET RESTRICTED DATA
as information "revealing the theory of operation or design of the components of a thermonuclear or fission bomb."
***
* In espionage cases, the FBI in most circumstances needs approval by the Justice Department to arrest a suspect. The agents who discovered the two index cards in Min's carryon bag were operating under bizarre and apocalyptic instructions from the department. They were to arrest the Livermore engineer if they found nuclear information that would enable China to destroy the planet and "end the world as we know it."
***
* The FBI does not give medals, but agents who perform hazardous or extraordinary work may receive an "incentive" reward in cash. The agent who reconstructed the index cards received a cash reward.
***
* Min's name was deleted from Reno's Senate testimony and for clarity has been inserted above in brackets.
***
* According to a secret Justice Department report on the Wen Ho Lee case, there were six "ethnic Chinese" on the list of twelve suspects, including the two Lees.
***
* Wen Ho Lee told the polygrapher that he had called Gwo-bao Min. The Wackenhut employee who administered the lie detector test apparently did not bother to confirm the correct spelling and simply rendered the name phonetically in his report as "Ko Pau Ming."
***
* Zhongnanhai, guarded and closed to the public, is the central headquarters for the Communist Party and the government. The name is commonly used to refer to China's center of power, much as in the United States "the White House" means the president and the administration.
***
* After the
PARLOR MAID
case became public in April 2003, J.J. Smith vehemently denied that he had ever discussed the plane bugging with Leung. His lawyer, Brian Sun, said there was "absolutely not" a connection. "My client flat-out did not talk about the plane with her," he said.
***
* In intelligence parlance, an "illegal" is a spy operating without benefit of diplomatic cover. If caught, an illegal can be prosecuted, imprisoned, or even executed; by contrast, a diplomat can only be declared persona non grata and expelled by the host country.
***
* Six months later, in July 2010, the crisis eased with a compromise: China renewed Google's license and allowed it to operate some services on its google.cn website. Chinese Internet users would no longer automatically be routed to the uncensored Hong Kong website, but could click on a link that would take them there.