CHINESE: FOLLOWING SAGE ADVICE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380030-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: December 25, 1975
• Content Type: NSPR

By 11.D.S. Greenway
L.ash.nc'On Post F Or'ign Service
VIENTIANE, Laos-With
more and more Soviets
arriving every day in this
small, backwater Asian
capital, there is a story
making the diplomatic rounds
whereby a European diplomat
uJoaviv-V
vice
25 December 1975
rive 1 ,/ 8 I
Other Cloaks, Other Daggers-
remains one of the most secret
that the KGB and the CIA !
know more about each othepif
than. they do about.the
confesses to a. ?Chinese very few high-level defectors
correspondent' of the New.:, from the Chinese intelligence
really had no idea how many Chines e?eharge d'affaires at
Russians there are in Laos. the Hague, defected in 1969, he
'
`
.,
,
."Even I don"t-know,.how was .billed as amaster spy.
many Russians 'there are But the CIA discovered he was
here, the Chinese littlea,', more than an
correspondent is supposed to emotionally disturbed,
have replied, griddle-level diplomat and
As American power recedes eventually let him. go back to
in Indochina, the Soviets are China.
trying to fill the vacuum. Chinese operations' have
Soviet technicians-and 'pilots usually been low-key and
are now. performing many: of unobstrusive compared to the
the functions once.provided_by CIA ,or the , KGB As one
the U.S. CIA, x diplomat put pit, the Chinese
If. the Chinese e rrespon are not so pushy.
dent was a member of the It might be said that the.
Chinese secret service; as the. Chinese-;were'the. first to..
'
espionage in; -a
story is meant to suggest, he analyze-
has more than enodghtakeen' methodical way. The,Chinese:
him busy' in thi ? traditional classic$'1'he Art of War," said
The Soviets have replaced ' Tzu as early as 500 B.C., has a,:: the Americans as:the primary whale seetion,. on espionage
intelligence agents around the_ -foreknowledge'' that cannot
world and nowhere is this be elicited from spirits nor 11
more obvious ' than in from gods, nor by analogy
nr1M
penetration of the pro-Western obtained from men who know l ` n?/,l home
lured ed hoe
agents ? are those of the
--countries but Soviet influence;. the enemy situation.
with the newly victoriousThe book describes various their agents-are not equippee..
Vietnamese as well: types of secret agents: native, ,_. with. the same. sort of co
Vientiane is one of the few i inside, doubled, expendable plicated. electronic;gadgetry,:
places where all the big- and those to be kept alive. The :,As far as can be determined;'
. powers, plus Vietnam and; book explains that native they are not as prone toward
Thailand, have diplomatic-
missions. As is the case with.
.other 'major powers; the
Chinese- have intelligence.
operatives working within the;
Chinese embassy,, which sits
beside a dirt roadi not far from
the morning market.
The Chinese, too, have-
benefit ed from the American
retreat, While once there were
Chinese embassies'only here
and in Burma, the Chinese
now also have embassiest in.
Thailand, Malaysia and the.
Philippines, each with some
members of the Chinese
secret service. Chinese
espionage is worldwide, not'I
i limited just to Asia., but
compared to the Soviet KGB1
or the American CIA it is more:
defensive than offensive in
nature. I
enemy's country whom we
employ and inside agents are
enemy officials whom we
employ
has one great strength that
makes it comparable to the
Israeli secret service. All over
there are overseas Chinese
many of whom, not unlike the
Jews, feel a strong emotional
pull toward their homeland.
The Chinese take being
Chinese more seriously than
-do most nationalities.
Although many-have lived
overseas for generations, they
still 'feel themselves to be
:' 't ran
Chinese '....rather
Indonesian, Thai or whatever.'-
Like the Jews in Europe, the
Chinese. of Southeast Asia
have often bsen persecuted by
their host governments..: .
Some of...Peking's most
spectacular espionage suc-
cesses came very quickly,
scientists in the United'States
were lured back to China after
the Communists came to
power in .1949., The greatest.:;
coup was to persuade Chien,'
Hsuch-sen, the Berkeley-
trainPd rocket expert to comp
'either lured back or smuggled
In: some cases the Chinese
'pressure on, - scientists'by.
saying that members of their,,
hand wanted to see them. The
If anything, the Chinese are t own ends. in various. parts of
Soviets in building spy net some places, 'but traditionally
works.. The Chinese stress .the Nationalist Chinese agents
ideological sympathy. If, for. have made more use of the
example, they wanted to make, Chinese criminal societies)
an agent out of a secretary to than the Communists.
the president. of Singapore, In the early 1960s, the
one knowledgeable source Chinese secret service tried to
said; they would try to convert. extend its operations into
her rather than simply 'offer, , Africa and like.the Soviets and
her money or photograph her Americans backed various
in a: compromising situation. guerrilla groups with money
Cynics say that in this the and arms. They were par
Chinese make a virtue of titularly active in the Congo;.,;
necessitv since their service where their efforts _hrought
does not have the resources of them few benefits
the superpowers. But others ' They appeared to hive?
maintain that Chinese agents difficulty understanding the ;v
are, on the whole, more chaotic nature of African
ideologically motivated than i politics. Despite the recent :
the agents of other big powers. -Chinese efforts in the Angolan n
civil war. Peking has for the i
most part backed away from
The modern Chinese secret
service seems to place more
emphasis on the side of
espionage = the collecting
and careful. sifting of
newspapers technical
journals and periodicals -
rather than bribing or black-
mailing people into stealing
documents. They do employ
dirty tricks, , but not,
knowledgeable sources say, to
the degree the CIA and the
KGB do,
They do not have the
technical resources of the
Americans or the Soviets and
Approved For Release 2004/09/28: CIA-RDP88-01314R6b030Ct90TIT! ement,
preferring such
projects as the. Chinese-built
railway from to Tanaan k ,,:. ?
 Chines secrge,service ac-
tivity is thought W-be Paris.
But unlike the KGB, the
Chinese secret service does-
not concentrate on the West:
The Chinese favor a- strong
NATO and an economically
and politically integrated
Europe to counter Soviet
power. Their a9ents try, not to
'.;.probable Nol"_; I,.
subvert governments but:,. to'
show (up Soviet designs.
rvnx~j1 JaLxtvly rv~i
25 December 1975
K-;. _.._. The Ministr of Public
Western Communists and One of the greatestChinese y`
other .leftists. against the failures in recent nears was. Security might be compared
?
In Asia, the Chinese still tercoup in'Indonesia`in`1965..' organizationally it has more in
shek's, Nationalists. The
support Communist in '' The Indonesian .Communist commas with the KGB's _fatherof the Chinese secret
surgeneies in Thr(iland Party ;.which had`very cios'e. activities within the Soviet t service was Kang Sheng,. who
t'"
Malaysia and Burma. But,. l links to Peking, had gained
according to most sources enormous: inf luence..under
this is mostly moral support; ' Sukarcio, but it attempted a
such ,:'as 'ciandestine4 premature.'grab for power
propaganda radio broadcasts which the 'rightist generals
from China; rather than firms {brutally supressed. The: back,. ,Sources say that, if
and ammunition r " of the Communist movement anything, the Chinese are both
The Chinese =distinguish -was broken andcountless ; more successful at this sort of
between government to thousands of ..Chinese "'Brotherly, mass
government- relations and Indonesians were`rnassacred. 'manipulation and less brutal
party to-party relations. ew ifany out iders.aaa aboutit,than the Soviets. The study espionage organization
Although-.,',they have -efitirelysure how:the Chinese prisoners: of Mao, are repor- and is thought to have
diplomatic relations withthe secret service :bureaucracy tedly better treated than the developed a deep mistrust of
countries involves: ,'they dare works, But the sources have ,inmates of the Gulag the Soviets even while the i
not completely abandon moral concluded that it is made up of
Archipelago, even.- though : Chinese Communists were
support of - the .-internal several different :intellectual dissent is even closely _cooperating with .t
Communist. insurgencies lest organizations and depart- `less tolerated in Peking than them., In the 1950s and'.1960s,
the insurgents fall completely meets that allreport'to some in Moscow.
he was the undisputed. boss. -I
under the wing of the Soviets - sort.of'eentral intelligence The Investigation Depar- and coordinator of intelligence
or the Vietnamese, whom the control m :the Communist ' tment may be., the most im -and espionage for the Central
Chinese distrmst. 's Central Committee. portant of the various 'in Committee.
Some guerillas are trained party This control would then report telligence-gathering services ' It is not clear whether any
in China. In February 1974, r12 s directly to the ruling Polit- _ and is probablvthe.__closest one person has now assumed
shipwrecked ecked Filipino sailors burn. equivalent . of the American Kang's
were mantle. The most
picked up at sea by a~ likely candidate, however; is
ship and brought to These separate but con- CIA:
1ssinHong Kong. The sailors asked netted. organizations include The International Liaison, Hua headliof b the
to be repatriated to China the military intelligence Department has an espionage ' Ministry of Public Security in
instead of their native land. It department of the army function. It is responsible for January. That particular
was widely suspected that general staff, the in-:.; fraternal Communist parties ministry found itself in great
they were guerrillas returning vestigation department, the around the world and coor- Taiwan agents often try to
to the Philippines after ~'Iinistry of Public Security; dinates activities with them. infiltrate into China either by 1
training on the mainland. The the United Front, and the; . Whatever support the Chinesesea along lonely coasts or It
International ' 'Li a i s o n give the Thai insurgency, for
British authorities in, Hong through Hong Kong and
Kong put the whole thing department. intelligence looks exministered by ample, ouldis depa d- Macao.
under wraps and sent the men British police raided a in
after nilitary matters, of meet. The Chinese do not
to China. Hong Kong in November and It
course, and the Ministry of admit the agency has any-, The Chinese aid and train discovered an arms cache
Public Security keeps tabs on espionage function, however,
Pales lestinians, apparently to China's 800 million at home as and thus are free to identify consisting of pistols, in-
gain some influence with the cen l~ry devices, es losives
Palestinian movement ratherAk 5ari U(~ r31,k131I1.i 3043wQ3 hers
n
than leave the field clear for a believed to belong the c a oan Chinese consider to The Chinese Communist g to
the Soviets. Taiwanese agents hound for
be Chinese home territory., secret service was c> Bated China.
rr;rti?>sKrir.'.~
Union -' ? died on Dec. 16. Athis death he
Like the KGB, Peking'sit was a vice. chairman of the
E.ublic' Security administers. party and probably the fourth-
most of the daily controls over "ranking member of the j
.Chinese life. Chinese leadership. He had
eas Chinese can. be an intelligence asset for Peking. :>,
F,fduring-the days of the I-lijapanese struggle and the
been very sick for the last
several years. however, and
confined to a wheel chair.- -
Kang Sheng visited the
S
i
t U
i
n in the 1a30s to
ov
e
n
o
 Approved For Release 2004/09/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380030-9
Hong Kong is a major center
of the Chinese secret service,
not only for countering agents
from Taiwan, but also for
running and financing agents
abroad. Thousands of over-
seas Chinese pass through
(long Kong
on their way back
and forth from China every
year. The Hong Kong cer -
Cficateofidentityoftenserves i
as a passport for Chinese
agents. The New China News
service provides a sort of
unofficial Chinese diplomatic
presence in Hong Kong, and
the Communist Chinese own
several hanks there which can
both disguise and finance
espionage.
The Chinese often publicize
the alleged attempts of Soviet
di
l
p
omats to establish con-
tacts within China.' Given the
KGB successes with in-
filtrating agents into the
establishments of Western I
countries and given the close
working relations that the
Chinese had. with the Soviets
up until the late 1950s, it would
not be hard to imagine that'"
some pro-Soviet Chinese,
especially iii: the military,
might be persuaded to work
for the Kremlin.
The KGB is thought to have
a 12th Chief Directorate
especially aimed at coa-
verting Chinese diplomats.
Although there appears
little available evidence for it.
sources say that it would be
remarkable if the Chinese
score, service cirri ;tot oe.
c'asionally try to cooperate
with Western inteliigen?ce
services against the Soviets.
No one suggests, however;
that this cooperation is for-
mal. nor is it suggested that it
even approaches the close
relations that the major
Western secret services like to
maintain among themselves.,
It is not likely that the top
men of the Chinese leadership
will be overly shocked at the
revelations which have so
recently-arid devastatingly
exposed the CIA. The men of
the Long March have come up
the hard way and they expect
rough play: It is more likely
that they are not so much
shocked at the revelations as
in the, very fact that such-
things are revealed in the
United States.
But for their own secret
set vice there is very little of
the no holds barred espionage
that marked competitioli
between the Soviets and the
Americans in. Bet-tin, for
example. -Here .-in t Vientiane
the Chinese are- simply
waiting quietly, trying to keep
tabs on the Soviets, putjn_a
bad word for them when they
can and wait for them_4,a
overextend themselves.
NEXT: How the West
Gernians Spy
Approved For Release 2004/09/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380030-9