{"id":1446429,"date":"2023-12-29T03:10:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1446429"},"modified":"2023-12-29T03:10:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T08:10:00","slug":"report-details-cias-struggles-to-rebuild-spy-network-in-china-no-real-insight-into-leadership-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/report-details-cias-struggles-to-rebuild-spy-network-in-china-no-real-insight-into-leadership-plans\/1446429\/","title":{"rendered":"Report Details CIA’s Struggles To Rebuild Spy Network In China: “No Real Insight Into Leadership Plans”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Report Details CIA’s Struggles To Rebuild Spy Network In China: “No Real Insight Into Leadership Plans”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

This week The Wall Street Journal<\/em> published a lengthy investigative article titled “American spies confront a new, formidable China,” which highlights setbacks and difficulties of the CIA’s ability to spy on China even as the Biden administration has called the country a top ‘pacing threat’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A main theme of the report is seen where the WSJ quotes a former US intelligence official who acknowledged<\/a>, “We have no real insight into leadership plans and intentions in China at all.”\u00a0<\/strong>The report reviews what led up to this state of things, namely the CIA’s catastrophic failure in China about a decade ago, and the agency’s struggle to rebuild its network in the tightly controlled Communist surveillance state.<\/p>\n

The 2012 incident refers to when dozens of US spies were reportedly caught red-handed in China. Very likely this major bust-up of an alleged CIA network was a key trigger for President Xi Jinping’s anticorruption drive<\/strong>, given that government corruption left Beijing exposed to vulnerabilities by Western spy agencies. Dozens of CIA assets were reportedly imprisoned between 2010 and 2012, and others reportedly executed. In 2018,\u00a0a\u00a0Foreign Policy\u00a0<\/em>report<\/a>\u00a0estimated that the number caught consisted of 30 CIA assess, and described further the spy ring was discovered largely due to a botched communication system.<\/p>\n

AFP\/Getty Images<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Last summer CIA officials gave rare public statements<\/a> confirming the agency has been busy trying to rebuild its spy networks inside China. The arena of human intelligence was believed left particularly weakened after 2012. CIA Director William Burns said last July before the Aspen Security Forum, “We\u2019ve made progress, and we\u2019re working very hard over recent years\u00a0to ensure that we have strong human intelligence capability to complement what we can acquire through other methods<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

And now Burns has issued a fresh quote and updated statement to the Journal<\/em>, saying<\/a> “We are approaching the PRC as a global priority, more than doubling the budget resources devoted to the China mission<\/strong> over the past three years, and establishing the China Mission Center as CIA\u2019s only single country mission center to coordinate the full agency\u2019s efforts on this issue.”<\/p>\n

Burns added: “Even as we are balancing multiple priorities including ongoing conflicts, we remain intensely engaged on the strategic long-term challenge posed by the PRC.”<\/p>\n

Chinese state media has meanwhile responded on Thursday, blasting Washington as the true “source of chaos” in the international order<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

#ChinaDailyEditorial<\/a> The latest disclosure of CIA’s activities in China once again proves that it is the US, rather than any other country, that is the fundamental source of chaos in the international order. https:\/\/t.co\/xPqRCtRAcH<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 China Daily (@ChinaDaily) December 28, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n

Below are some further key quotes and highlights from the fresh WSJ report<\/a> (subheadings by ZH)…<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Beijing’s spycatchers and CIA’s monumental blunder<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Beijing\u2019s spycatchers all but blinded the U.S. in China a decade ago when they systematically rounded up a network of Chinese agents working for the CIA. As many as two dozen assets providing information to the U.S. were executed or imprisoned, among them high-ranking Chinese officials.”<\/p>\n

Other geopolitical flashpoints have complicated the CIA’s China focus<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The pivot hasn\u2019t been simple. Hamas\u2019s surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, and Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine\u00a0have demanded White House attention and intelligence resources<\/a>, complicating CIA Director\u00a0William Burns\u2019s drive to ensure China is the top long-term priority. One agency veteran said that handling the two crises, while keeping a sustained focus on Beijing, will test the agency\u2019s agility.”<\/p>\n

Vast majority of China US intel today comes from signals\/electronic snooping<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Today, U.S. spy satellites closely monitor China\u2019s military deployments and modernization plans, while cyber and eavesdropping tools scoop up vast swaths of Chinese communications. Beyond that, U.S. knowledge of Xi\u2019s plans comes mostly from inference and from parsing his frequent public statements, officials said.<\/p>\n

China is a much tougher intelligence target than it was a decade ago, when the agents were lost. Xi\u2019s security-first state employs Orwellian surveillance systems that\u00a0vastly complicate<\/a>\u00a0spy operations inside the country. And U.S. intelligence must track China\u2019s progress in fields as disparate as artificial intelligence and synthetic biology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

…The vast majority of U.S. intelligence on China now comes from electronic snooping\u2014intercepting phone calls, emails and every other form of digital communication, the current and former officials indicated. Such signals intelligence can rarely replace human spies in divining an adversary\u2019s true intentions or weaknesses, officials say.”<\/p>\n

Leveraging corruption for human intel<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The CIA leveraged endemic corruption in the upper reaches of the Communist Party and government ministries to recruit dozens of officials as paid agents, former officials familiar with the events said. But in a catastrophic setback, this network was obliterated as China caught the traitors in its midst one by one.<\/p>\n

A flaw in the CIA\u2019s covert communications with its agents, exploited by Beijing, is the suspected cause of the compromise, former officials said. The details of what went wrong aren\u2019t publicly known, and it is unclear if anyone at the agency was held accountable.”<\/p>\n

Horrendous!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHorrendous. Horrendous. Horrendous,\u201d a former senior U.S. official said of the losses in China. \u201cAnd I have doubts about whether there\u2019s been much of a recovery since then.\u201d<\/p>\n

China has ramped up its own spying in America<\/strong><\/p>\n

“China also ramped up its own human espionage, often using social media sites such as LinkedIn to contact and recruit former U.S. intelligence officials. Its successes included Kevin Patrick Mallory, a former CIA officer who had become deeply in debt and sold secrets for cash, including the identities of U.S. intelligence officers due to travel to China. Mallory was\u00a0convicted in 2018<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In August, the Justice Department revealed\u00a0the arrest\u00a0<\/a>of two U.S. Navy sailors charged with providing military information to China. Both were U.S. naturalized citizens born in China.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Regional analyst and China watcher\u00a0Arnaud Bertrand<\/a> has a contrarian take on the new WSJ report…<\/em><\/p>\n

This CIA network they discovered and dismantled in 2012 was undoubtedly one of the key triggers for Xi’s anticorruption drive, when they noticed the extent to which they could be infiltrated… To be added to the now VERY long list of US actions on China that backfired big time.<\/p>\n

Funny the WSJ now laments the US has “no real insight into leadership plans” as if this was somehow abnormal: it should be the norm, countries should be sovereign, free to make their own decisions in private and without foreign interference.<\/p>\n

In fact this is what International law dictates! Sadly only China seems to actually put that in practice nowadays… I am still waiting on Europe holding the US accountable for Snowden’s revelations that they basically systematically listen in on European leaders…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 12\/28\/2023 – 22:10<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/report-dives-recent-cia-failures-china-no-real-insight-leadership-plans<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

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