Tag: Espionage and Intelligence Services

China Investing in Open-Source Intelligence Collection on the U.S.

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Why It Matters: Beijing’s open-source intelligence collection could give it an advantage. As the relationship between the United States and China has become more adversarial, both countries are investing more in their intelligence collection capabilities. With Beijing’s investments in big data management, mining publicly available sources of information could give China an advantage in collecting intelligence on the United States and its allies. While autocratic countries like China hide information about their military, the United States — as a democracy that tries to be responsive to its public — puts…

Chinese Malware Hits Systems on Guam. Is Taiwan the Real Target?

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Around the time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was examining the equipment recovered from the wreckage of the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast in February, American intelligence agencies and Microsoft detected what they feared was a more worrisome intruder: mysterious computer code that has been popping up in telecommunications systems in Guam and elsewhere in the United States. The code, which Microsoft said was installed by a Chinese government hacking group, raised alarms because Guam, with its Pacific ports and vast American air base, would…

Biden Team to Counter Tech Espionage Unveils Cases Involving China and Russia

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The Biden administration announced arrests and criminal charges on Tuesday in five cases involving sanctions evasion and technology espionage efforts linked to Russia, China and Iran. Two Russian nationals were taken into custody last week under accusations of sending aircraft parts to Russia in violation of sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. In another case, a former Apple engineer is accused of stealing the company’s autonomous vehicle technology to provide it to a Chinese competitor. The announcements were the work of a recently established “technology strike force,” which aims…

China Sentences a U.S. Citizen to Life in Prison for Espionage

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A Chinese court said it sentenced a 78-year-old American citizen to life in prison on Monday on unspecified charges of spying, the latest in a wave of espionage cases the authorities have pursued amid growing wariness of foreign influence in the country. The Intermediate People’s Court in the southeastern city of Suzhou said in a short statement that it pronounced John Shing-Wan Leung guilty of espionage and sentenced him. It said that Mr. Leung was arrested in April 2021 by state security officials, but provided no details about the charges…

China’s Economic Needs May Take a Back Seat to Security

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To revive its sluggish economy, China set out this year to woo foreign investors and stabilize its ties with the West. But these goals are colliding with what China’s leader, Xi Jinping, considers the paramount priority: bolstering national security in a world he sees as full of threats. Mr. Xi has warned that China must fight back against a campaign by the United States to contain and suppress the country’s rise. In this worldview, foreign rivals are using spies to weaken China’s economy; Russia is not treated as a pariah…

Kiel-Qingdao Sister City Plan Stalled Amid German Wariness of China

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City officials in the northern German port of Kiel were flattered this year when the Chinese port of Qingdao — about 40 times its size — proposed partnering up as a sister city. They rushed to embrace the offer. The two cities had a history of cooperation dating to when the Germans helped their Chinese counterparts develop a sailing venue for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Both have substantial commercial ports, sprawling boardwalks and public beaches. It seemed a good match. Almost too good, in fact, for security experts, who noted…

‘Rip and Replace’: The Tech Cold War Is Upending Wireless Carriers

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Deep in a pine forest in Wilcox County, Ala., three workers dangled from the top of a 350-foot cellular tower. They were there to rip out and replace Chinese equipment from the local wireless network. Three hours into the job, the team ran into a hitch. Replacement gear from a European company was obstructing a safety beacon for airplanes. “We’ve got a problem,” a crew member on the ground said. “They say it’s blocking the beacon.” The project had already been delayed for months because of storms, slow equipment shipments…

Capvision, a Consulting Firm, is Raided by Chinese Authorities

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China has targeted another global business consulting firm on national security grounds, launching an investigation of the Shanghai-based Capvision Partners as part of a broader crackdown on the industry, state media reported on Monday night. Officers raided several of the firm’s offices in China, including in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and Shenzhen, state media said, explaining that the company was not “earnestly fulfilling the responsibilities and obligations” of preventing espionage. Capvision did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Monday night, the company said on its official account on…

Did China Help Vancouver’s Mayor Win Election?

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Every day when he arrives at his office in City Hall, Mayor Ken Sim stares at a prominent black-and-white photograph of Chinese railway workers toiling on the tracks in British Columbia in 1884. Mr. Sim, the son of Hong Kong immigrants, said the workers’ weathered faces are a daily reminder of the symbolic importance of his election as Vancouver’s first Chinese Canadian mayor, and of just how far Chinese Canadians have come. Six months ago, his historic landslide victory was widely lauded, viewed as the triumph…

China Accuses Liberal Columnist of Espionage After a Lunch With Diplomat

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BEIJING — A high-ranking editor at a Chinese Communist Party newspaper who often wrote liberal-leaning commentaries is expected to stand trial for espionage in Beijing, after he was arrested while eating lunch with a Japanese diplomat. The editor, Dong Yuyu, was a columnist and deputy editor of the editorial section at Guangming Daily, one of the party’s major newspapers. For decades, he had routinely met with foreigners, including diplomats and journalists, in part to inform his own prolific writing. But now the authorities are eyeing those interactions as proof that…