Chinese Subversion

China’s fingerprints are everywhere
By David Ignatius

A little-noticed passage in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy released last month previewed a new push to combat Chinese influence operations that affect American universities, think tanks, movie studios and news organizations.
The investigations by Congress and the FBI into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign won’t be affected by the added focus on China, officials say. 

Instead, the aim is to highlight Chinese activities that often get a free pass but have a toxic long-term effect because of China’s growing wealth and power.
A National Security Council interagency group is coordinating the administration’s study of Chinese activities that are “outside traditional espionage, in the gray area of covert influence operations,” a senior administration official said. 

 The rationale, noted in the 55-page strategy document, is that “America’s competitors weaponize information to attack the values and institutions that underpin free societies, while shielding themselves from outside information.”
In targeting Chinese operations, the administration is walking a delicate line between helping American academics, think-tank experts and journalists resist pressure and fomenting mass public anxiety about Beijing’s activities. 

Officials say they want to help American institutions push back against intimidation from a Chinese Communist Party that is rich, self-confident and seductive in a way that Russia has never been.
The administration official said in an interview Tuesday that the target “is not Chinese soft power — the legitimate exchange of people and ideas, which is something we welcome. What we’re talking about are coercive and covert activities designed to influence elections, officials, policies, company decisions and public opinion.”
Kurt Campbell, who oversaw Asia policy during the Obama administration and now runs an Asia consulting group, offered a measured endorsement: “The NSC-led inquiry about Chinese influence operations, if conducted dispassionately, could be useful. We focus mostly on Russian influence operations. But the Chinese have a much more subtle and complex agenda here.”
A catalyst for the Trump administration’s probe was an investigation in Australia, which revealed what that country’s security chief called “unprecedented” Chinese meddling that could damage Australia’s sovereignty. 

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull proposed new controls in December.
The administration official offered examples of how American institutions can be pressured by China:
● Universities host more than 350,000 Chinese, who make up nearly a third of all foreign students here. 

Beijing encourages students to join local branches of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. 

Sometimes students get squeezed. 

The senior official cites the case of a Chinese student from a dissident family who was warned by a friend not to share personal details — because the friend would report them to Chinese intelligence.
Students and university officials who resist Beijing can pay a price. 

A Chinese graduating senior at the University of Maryland last year was shamed by social media into apologizing for a comment praising free speech. 

At the University of California at San Diego, an invitation to the Dalai Lama brought a protest from the local students’ association and warnings that UCSD might not receive more Chinese students and that its graduates’ degrees might not be recognized back home.
● Think tanks are eager to study China, but often the money to support research comes from business executives with close relations with Beijing. 

That can lead to pro-China bias. 

In conversations with think-tank leaders, the senior official said, he has stressed “the need for think tanks to cast a brighter light in this area. We think sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
● Hollywood studios face an especially delicate problem, because the Chinese box office is so important to their bottom line. 

Ticket sales in China rose from $1.5 billion in 2010 to $8.6 billion last year, second only to America’s. 

Inevitably, U.S. studios fear offending Chinese official "sensibilities".
● News organizations face pressure, too. 

China restricts visas for journalists or publications it sees as too "aggressive". 

After Bloomberg News published revelations in 2012 about the family wealth of Chinese political leaders, Beijing temporarily blocked sales of Bloomberg’s financial data terminals in China, a potentially crippling move.
China’s glittering modern facade often convinces outsiders that it’s a country just like those in the West. 

Not so, says Peter Mattis, a former CIA analyst who now studies Chinese influence activities for the Jamestown Foundation. 

When American thought leaders interact with Chinese representatives, it’s not a free-flowing “conduit,” he says, but a controlled circuit.
America has never faced a rival quite like China, which presents such a compelling, well-financed challenge to democratic values. 

America certainly doesn’t want a new “Red Scare,” but maybe a wake-up call.

Rogue Social Media

China is Using LinkedIn to Recruit Informants
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ and MELISSA EDDY

The Chinese Embassy in Berlin on Monday. German intelligence services said that more than 10,000 German citizens had been targeted by Chinese spies on LinkedIn.

BEIJING — German’s domestic intelligence agency has accused China of using LinkedIn to infiltrate the German government.
In a scathing investigation released on Sunday, the intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, accused Beijing of using social media to target more than 10,000 citizens, including lawmakers and other government employees. 

To win their trust, the agency said, Chinese agents posed as leaders of think tanks and headhunters, and offered all-expenses-paid trips to China and meetings with influential clients.
The German investigation added to anxieties in Western countries about Chinese efforts to infiltrate foreign governments and businesses, in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage, especially on economic and foreign policy issues. 

The United States has accused China of rampant economic espionage. 

Australia is debating tougher laws to guard against foreign interference, amid reports that China is meddling in Australian universities and elections.
German officials said that Chinese agents had created fake profiles in hopes of “gleaning information and recruiting sources” in Germany. 

Chinese agents approached targets by saying they were interested in exchanging information or offering to establish contact for them with an expert on China, German officials said.

Hans-Georg Maassen, the president of the German intelligence agency, called the efforts “a broad attempt to infiltrate Parliaments, ministries and administrations.”
Adam M. Segal, an expert on cybersecurity and China at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the German investigation will add “more fuel to the fire of skepticism and suspicion about Chinese actions” in the West.
He said that China would probably continue to expand its digital espionage efforts despite criticism. “Given how sensitive the regime and Xi Jinping seems to be to any challenge domestically, they also want to try to control as much as they can internationally,” Mr. Segal said.

LinkedIn is one of few foreign social media companies operating in China, in part because it adheres closely to Chinese regulations and has a relatively warm relationship with the government.
Under the scheme described by German intelligence, Chinese agents used aliases like Eva Han on LinkedIn.

They used photographs from fashion magazines as their profile pictures. 

Several listed fake company names.
Once they established contact with German citizens, the Chinese agents intensified the attempted exchange, asking for a résumé and offering compensation for work on a project.

They invited Germans to China for conferences or meetings with “important clients” who never materialized. 

They pressed the targets for sensitive information in exchange for money.

The German government has repeatedly warned in recent months that China is increasing its efforts to steal trade secrets and other sensitive information from European targets.
In July, the government said that Chinese agents were seeking information about foreign and economic policy. 

It said China had targeted lawmakers and employees of the European and German Parliaments, lobbyists, members of the military and representatives of foundations and think tanks.

Is he a spy? Probably.