Understanding Chinese Espionage: ‘An Ounce of Prevention’

(Washington, D.C.): In recent days, the growing conventional wisdom is that, since
Wen Ho Lee
has not been charged with any crime, let alone successfully prosecuted, there must be no case
against the former Los Alamos physicist who emerged as a leading suspect in allegations of
Chinese nuclear espionage which were addressed at length in the report issued of the Select
House Committee chaired by Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA). In fact, in a stunning betrayal,
Secretary
of Energy Bill Richardson has failed to defend Notra Trulock — the
Department’s former chief
of intelligence upon whom he recently bestowed a $10,000 performance award for his work in
revealing the PRC’s spying at the nuclear labs — against repeated, scurrilous charges that
Trulock engaged in a racist witch-hunt against Lee.

Fortunately, yesterday’s New York Times published a necessary tonic in the form of an
op.ed.
article about the nature of “China’s Subtle Spying” by Paul D. Moore. Mr. Moore, a respected
FBI specialist in countering Chinese intelligence operations makes clear that the very nature of
such operations makes their prosecution or even detection exceedingly difficult. Regrettably,
like
Note Trulock, Paul Moore recently found the Clinton Administration to be an inhospitable
environment for a conscientious professional and his skills are no longer being employed where
they are needed most — in the U.S. government.

China’s Subtle Spying

By Paul D. Moore

In the furor over the investigation of Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos National
Laboratory
scientist suspected of spying, the operating assumption of most people seems to be that where
there is espionage there must be evidence of espionage. A corollary to this is that failure to
produce such evidence is proof of either a bungled investigation or a rush to judgment — in this
case, a judgment that some say erroneously singled out Mr. Lee because of his race.

My take is completely different. I think what we are seeing is evidence that China may have
succeeded in devising an espionage strategy that can, over time, consistently defeat our ability to
investigate or prosecute spying offenses.

China does not normally pay an agent for information, request that the agent provide
classified
documents, use intelligence officers to elicit information from the agent or engage in clandestine
activity like “dead drops” in the United States. This means that there are rarely the “smoking
guns” that we have in other cases of espionage — the unexplained bank deposits, the videotapes
of a suspect leaving items in a hollow rock in the park.

China prefers to obtain its information a little bit at a time, by having its scientists and
experts
exploit individuals who are visiting China in the normal course of business. The problem for
American investigators and prosecutors is not to determine whether someone under investigation
has provided information to China, but to prove somehow that he told the Chinese three things
when he was authorized to discuss only two, or perhaps four things instead of three.

This is very bad news for investigators and prosecutors, who have little they can fall back on.
For
example, a wiretap of a suspect’s phone may provide some useful background or personality
assessment information, but it is unlikely to yield instantly incriminating conversation of the
“bring your documents and meet me in the park” variety. Unless a suspect for some reason is
cooperative enough to confess, there is little chance that a case can be made against him. Even if
it can be shown that the suspect provided information, it is likely to remain unclear whether this
was deliberate or inadvertent.

The principle that the Chinese apply is simple: people will almost never commit espionage,
but
they will often enough be indiscreet — sometimes perhaps to the point of making a major mistake
— if they can be put in the right circumstances.

In other words, China doesn’t so much try to steal secrets as to try to induce foreign visitors
to
give them away by manipulating them into certain situations. Such circumstances can include
appeals to altruistic feelings: “Scientific information should recognize no political boundaries.”
Or to ego: “Someone as knowledgeable as you must know a hundred things that would help our
research immeasurably but would not hurt your country at all.”

In addition, it has been common enough for the Chinese to arrange a grueling day of tourism
for
visitors, followed by an evening cocktail reception at which a graduate student might seek
research assistance, in the process repeating a question that the visitor had previously been
unwilling to answer when asked by a senior Chinese colleague. It also has been possible to
simply embarrass valuable information out of a guest by being so frank and open with him about,
say, China’s neutron bomb design work that he will want to offer at least a helpful hint in return.

China’s strategy has some inherent limitations. Since China seeks only a little information at
a
time and seeks it only when a visitor to China can be maneuvered into the right circumstances,
its effort moves rather slowly. It could speed things up with a “dollars for documents” approach,
but that is a much riskier strategy because of the evidence trail it leaves.

As far as I can see, we are mishandling this threat to our national security because we are
focused
on the wrong questions, looking at who stole what information, in the expectation that our search
will uncover one or more major spies. While it’s possible there are major spies out there, it’s not
very likely.

The United States should instead focus on where and how China is obtaining information.
China’s espionage methodology, not a particular spy, is the main threat. The fact that China
apparently has managed to acquire significant information without paying money for it makes
me suspect that the root problem is people making mistakes, rather than people committing
espionage.

Thus our national strategy should be prevention, not prosecution. China’s approach should be
vulnerable to a systematic program intended to eliminate or steer clear of what might be termed
“occasions for indiscretion” that confront American visitors.

It is likely the Chinese have only a limited number of situations that they manufacture to try
to
get extra information out of a visitor, and that they use the same techniques over and over.
Against such an approach, an ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of prosecution.

Paul D. Moore was the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s chief analyst for Chinese
counterintelligence from 1978 to 1998.