Global Watch | Chinese Military intelligence: How a mammoth war machine plays spy games across the globe

One of the key elements of the Chinese espionage network is the military intelligence that it has been able to keep under wraps. What we are witnessing is a new avatar of Chinese Military intelligence under President Xi Jinping who as a head of the Central Military Commission directly controls the Chinese military. He started restructuring the Chinese military in 2015-16 and that also included revamping of the Chinese military intelligence network. Peter Mattis explained the importance and implications of this exercise of Chinese espionage network in China reorients strategic military intelligence (Janes, 2017), “On 26 November 2015, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the first significant revision of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since its reorganisation during the 1950s, when the PLA transformed from an army fighting a civil war to one capable of protecting a nation-state. The reforms removed the Soviet-inspired system of general departments, established a new division of labour, and realigned the PLA organisationally to better fulfil the Military Strategic Guidelines that state the goal of winning informationised local wars.” “Many elements of the PLA’s modernisation effort in the past 25 years have had strictly military implications, but this round of reforms reaches far beyond the Chinese military to reshape how the leadership receives information. To reinforce the Central Military Commission’s (CMC’s) control over operational forces and provide better battlefield intelligence support, the PLA created the Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). The new force consolidated much of the PLA’s technical collection capabilities to direct them towards supporting military operations.” Chinese Military Intelligence Arm: Joint Staff Department The Chinese military intelligence arm has been innocuously named as Joint Staff Department (JSD). Earlier it was known as 2PLA or second department of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) General Staff Department. The JSD came into existence around seven years ago. According to Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg (Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World), “The Intelligence Bureau of the CMC Joint Staff Department is not only responsible for military intelligence but also has a history of extensive activity in civilian domains. It draws on military attachés and signals intelligence to gather intelligence. The Joint Staff Department has its own think tanks — the China Institute for International Strategic Studies, which focuses on research, and the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies, which engages in academic and policy exchanges. Its Institute of International Relations (now part of the National University of Defense Technology) trains military attachés and secret agents.” Structure of Chinese Military Intelligence Apparatus The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls the PLA through its Central Military Commission. President Xi Jinping has been the chairman of the CMC ever since he came to power in 2012. According to a US Congressional Research Report published in June 2021, China’s current military modernisation push began in 1978 and accelerated in the 1990s. Xi Jinping, the General Secretary and “core leader” of the CCP, Chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission, and State President, has continued to make military modernisation a priority and has linked military modernization to his signature issue: the “China Dream” of a modern, strong, and prosperous country. ‘In 2017, Xi formalised three broad goals for the PLA: (1) to achieve mechanization of the armed forces and to make significant progress toward what the United States would call a “networked” force by 2020; (2) to “basically complete” China’s military modernization process by 2035; and (3) to have a “world-class” military by 2049, the centenary of the establishment of the PRC. Xi has initiated the most ambitious reform and reorganisation of the PLA since the 1950s, in an effort to transform the military into a capable joint force as well as to further consolidate control of the PLA in the hands of Xi and the CCP.’ Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology(ICIT), a Washington-based think tank has worked extensively on detailing the structure of Chinese military intelligence through their senior fellow James Drew and Researcher Scott Spaniel. According to Scott and Spaniel, “The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Joint Staff Department (JSD) replaced the General Staff Department on January 11, 2016 as part of Xi Jinping’s military reforms. It manages the majority of military and covert operations. The JSD, as a division of the PLA, is dedicated to warfare. The duties of the PLA JSD include PLA Operations Command, Recruitment, Mobilization, Formation, Training, and Administration.” Second and Third Department The JSD has three departments which work in coordination to conduct various intelligence operations. These departments deal respectively with electronic intelligence, human intelligence and signal intelligence. The section within the PLA’s Joint Staff Department that deals with conventional human intelligence(HUMANINT) is known as ‘Second Department’. James Scott and Drew Spaniel estimated in their 2016 book, China’s Espionage Dynasty, that this particular department had around 30,000–50,000 agents around the world. Their primary task is to collect useful, relevant and confidential information and send it back to China. ‘A common misconception is that agents of the Chinese government are “sloppy”; however, agents of the second department who serve as high level spies or handlers are rarely caught. Rather, low-level assets, often belonging to the overt structure, are more often detected by foreign intelligence agencies.’ The Third Department which is entrusted with the task of signals intelligence (SIGNIT). According to Drew and Spaniel, “The Third Department is the largest intelligence agency in the Chinese government, consisting of an estimated 250,000- 300,000 linguists, technical staff, and cyber soldiers. There are at least four known Research Institutes (56, 57, 58, and 61) under the Third Department. Within the 61 Research Institute are approximately 20 bureaus that launch cyberattacks. The Third Department intercepts phone calls, launches cyberattacks, and monitors communications. Much of its efforts involve hacking devices and exfiltrating targeted data. The Third Department may launch obvious cyberattacks, such as DDoS or ransomware attacks, against target systems to mask the activity of Second Department operatives.” Fourth Department The Fourth Department is responsible for electronic intelligence (ELINT) operations. Its prime focus is on intercepting satellite and radar data. The operatives of Fourth Department are experts in altering, jamming, or spoofing of signals. “It is believed that the Fourth Department researches direct methods of disabling enemy communication networks. State-Sponsored APTs (i.e. Chinese state sponsored advanced persistent threats) can be identified based on their choice of targets, their proclivity for cyberespionage, and the language settings on the keyboards used to develop the malware, and their connections to other campaigns. Some groups, such as APT 1 (Unit 61398), APT 2 (Unit 61486) and APT 30 (Unit 78020) can be linked to specific units within the Third Department. Other APTs remain less defined.” PLA Unit 61398 In May 2014, five officers of the PLA who belonged to its unit ‘61398’ commonly known for cyber espionage and cyberattacks were indicted by a US court. Several cyber security firms have reported about the clandestine operations of this unit which is one of the key parts of the Chinese Military Intelligence apparatus. This unit primarily targets countries with flourishing democracies as they are a perfect antidote to the Chinese authoritarian system. Hence along with several other countries, India has also been one of their targets. Several cyberattacks on the Indian establishment are believed to have been carried out by this unit. It is reportedly headquartered in Datong Avenue of Pudong district in Shanghai. There has been a consistent spurt in its activities. Conclusion The Chinese military intelligence is committed to pursue the so-called vision of Xi Jinping and peddle a pro-China global narrative. China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), a front form the Chinese military intelligence network, carried a detailed comment on India. Authored by Lan Jianxue, Director of the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies at CIIS, this is what Chinese military intelligence conveyed, “Noticeably, the connotation of the so-called Asian Century, as understood by Indians, is not quite the same as that understood by the Chinese. The expression “Asian Century” was actually coined by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1988when he met with then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Deng pointed out that no genuine Asian Century can come until China, India and other neighbouring countries are developed. … The Asian century that India envisions is a multipolar Asian world, of which India is the most important pole and in which India can play a leading role. The Indian side has repeatedly used the Asian Century in this regard. To a certain extent, it is using the concept of the so-called Asian century to put pressure on China, with an attempt to force China to make concessions on the border issue.” It is clear that India remains one of the primary targets of the Chinese espionage network. And the Chinese military has a significant role to play in this game of cloak and dagger. (This is part 5 of the Chinese Spy Games) Also read: Global Watch | UFWD: ‘Magic weapon’ in China’s espionage arsenal Global Watch | How Chinese spy agency MSS disrupts the world Global Watch | George Soros and Chinese spy agency worked together as comrades Global Watch | From ‘Guoanbu’ to Xinhua, how China’s espionage network operates in shadows The writer, an author and columnist, has written several books. He tweets @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed are personal. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.