Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Chinese Spies Difficult to Contain

A Cautionary Tale for US Business

Former CIA operative and later US Ambassador to China, James Lilley said the Chinese regime used very different techniques and were accordingly difficult to monitor.

Speaking on US news program, Frontline, Mr Lilley said that only a small percentage of Chinese spies did "clandestine work". The rest, he said, gathered enormous amounts of bite sized information which were then assembled into a bigger picture. ...

"Ultimately we weren't successful in identifying a lot of their activities and a lot of their targets," he said, adding that Chinese espionage was so subtle it was often difficult to "explain and justify budget for continuing operations."

Dan Stober, American author of a book on Chinese espionage, explained that Chinese agents target specific industries then work on building relationships with senior executives or experts in the field... (more)

q.v. A real-life example.