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Why China has become enemy no. 1 of the CIA?

2023-12-27 23:00:56Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Why China has become enemy no. 1 of the CIA?
Why China has become enemy no. 1 of the CIA?

After two decades of hunting alleged terrorists, the $100 billion-a-year U.S. intelligence community is retraining staff and retooling its powerful espionage machine to prepare for a potential clash with potential major adversaries.

Strengthening a network of spies targeting China is one of the goals of a sweeping but largely covert shakeup at the CIA and sister US intelligence agencies, the Wall Street Journal has learned.

"We are making the People's Republic of China a global priority, more than doubling the budget dedicated to the mission in China over the past three years and establishing the China Mission Center as the CIA's only in-country center to coordinated agency-wide efforts on this matter," CIA Director William Burns said in an interview with the WSJ.

"We have no real knowledge"

Beijing "pulled the rug from under Washington's feet" when it exposed a large network of foreign spies in China ten years ago. According to a New York Times investigation, the government of the People's Republic of China managed to kill or imprison 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012. Foreign Policy, citing its own sources, states an even greater number – at least 30 CIA spies killed in a two-year period. But the US government has never publicly acknowledged the loss of its Chinese agents.

The lack of CIA agents in China has left the US in the dark about what Chinese leader Xi Jinping is planning for Taiwan, as well as other plans. "We have absolutely no real insight into the plans and intentions of the leadership in China," admitted one former intelligence official.

Instead of first-hand information from sources, Washington gathers data using communications interceptors and spy satellites that monitor China's military deployments and modernization plans. Moreover, American knowledge of Xi's plans comes largely from inferences and analysis of his public statements.

After 2020, the CIA and other intelligence agencies began to cut counterterrorism spending to focus on the Chinese government. Shortly after becoming director in 2021, Burns established a mission headquarters for China that brings together top intelligence analysts and technology experts. The CIA director also holds a weekly meeting in China, gathering top officials in his seventh-floor office at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The agency also encourages people already working at the CIA to learn Mandarin and is actively recruiting Mandarin speakers. Also, experts in new technologies are increasingly in demand. Accordingly, US intelligence services must monitor China's progress in various fields, from artificial intelligence to synthetic biology. In recent years, the rivalry between the US and China has grown in areas such as quantum computing, nuclear fusion and rare minerals. China has also increased its espionage, often using social networking sites such as LinkedIn to contact and recruit former US intelligence officials.

Electronic interception

In 2021, Burns created a unit focused on new technologies and includes collaboration with the private sector.

Much of what US intelligence agencies need to know is hidden in plain sight and can be found in a growing open-source intelligence database that presents new challenges for US intelligence. Open source data includes billions of social media posts, vast, commercially available databases, and academic papers.

Currently, US intelligence obtains most information about China through electronic snooping, that is, the interception of telephone calls, e-mails and other forms of digital communication. Such intelligence reporting can rarely replace spies in finding an adversary's true intentions or vulnerabilities, US officials point out.


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