Durante las tres décadas de carrera en el Servicio de Inteligencia Secreto del Reino Unido, China nunca fue considerada una gran amenaza.
Si perdíamos el sueño era por desafíos más inmediatos, como el expansionismo soviético y el terrorismo transnacional. El surgimiento vacilante de China de la caótica era de Mao Zedong y su aislamiento internacional después de que soldados chinos sofocaran las manifestaciones prodemocracia en la plaza de Tiananmén en 1989 hicieron que pareciera un páramo insular.
Hoy vemos un panorama distinto. China ha adquirido influencia económica y diplomática global, lo que permite que se establezcan operaciones encubiertas que van mucho más allá de la recopilación tradicional de inteligencia, que están creciendo a gran escala y amenazan con rebasar a las agencias de seguridad del mundo occidental.… Seguir leyendo »
In my three-decade career with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, China was never seen as a major threat.
If we lost sleep at night, it was over more immediate challenges such as Soviet expansionism and transnational terrorism. China’s halting emergence from the chaotic Mao Zedong era and its international isolation after Chinese soldiers crushed pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989 made it seem like an insular backwater.
It’s a different picture today. China has acquired global economic and diplomatic influence, enabling covert operations that extend well beyond traditional intelligence gathering, are growing in scale and threaten to overwhelm Western security agencies.… Seguir leyendo »
The month-long sojourn of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden on Chinese soil ended with his departure for Moscow and other parts after Hong Kong’s refusal to issue a warrant for his arrest despite an American request.
From China’s standpoint, this is the best resolution possible. It has been the main beneficiary of the whistleblower’s accusations against the American government, and it will now be spared a prolonged battle in the Hong Kong courts over whether Snowden should be extradited.
Snowden turned up in the former British colony at roughly the same time as a summit meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in California, at which time the American leader berated his Chinese counterpart for alleged involvement in large-scale cyber espionage against the United States
Snowden’s release of information about massive U.S.… Seguir leyendo »
In 1995, a middle-aged Chinese man walked into a C.I.A. station in Southeast Asia and offered up a trove of secret Chinese documents. Among them was a file containing the top-secret design of the American W-88 nuclear warhead that sits atop the missiles carried by Trident submarines.
He told a story to the C.I.A. that was so bizarre it might just be true. He said that he worked in China’s nuclear program and had access to the archive where classified documents were stored. He went there after hours one night, scooped up hundreds of documents and stuffed them into a duffel bag, which he then tossed out a second-story window to evade security guards.… Seguir leyendo »
A Chinese spy story with a reverse twist surfaced in Beijing last week, providing further evidence that China's rulers are having trouble maintaining their tight control over the Internet.
Maj. Gen. Jin Yinan of the People's Liberation Army, in what he apparently thought was an internal briefing, revealed half a dozen cases of Chinese officials who had spied for Britain, the United States and other countries. Somehow, the video of his sensational disclosures leaked out. Clips of his hours-long talk appeared on at least two Chinese websites, Youku.com and Tudou.com, but were quickly removed by government censors.
