Global Watch | How Chinese spy agencies deceived the world through ‘Grains of Sand’ theory

The classic Chinese text Art of War is most widely quoted when it comes to understanding the mindset of the Chinese establishment, especially in the context of its military operations and espionage activities. However, it isn’t sufficient to explain the present-day strategies, approach and mindset of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when it comes to building and deploying a massive and formidable spy network. We need to have a look at multiple aspects to develop an understanding about the approach adopted by the Chinese intelligence agencies. According to Art of War, five kinds of spies should be deployed: local spies, inside agents, double agents, expendable spies, and ‘live’ agents. “The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can only be derived, in the first instance, from the converted spy. Hence it is essential that the converted spy be treated with the utmost liberality,” says Sun Tzu in Art of War. Roger Faligot mentions one of the least discussed aspects of Chinese intelligence in Chinese Spies: From Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping, “The word Qingbao in Chinese has two meanings: ‘intelligence’ and ‘information’… The concept becomes even more interesting when one studies the Chinese characters and roots of the word Qingbao. The original meaning of Qing is “life light” and “heart”. It can be translated as “the reality of the situation”, “the way things are”, the “situation” put in perspective. The second character, Bao, originates from an ancient pictogram, simplified in modern times, meaning “a person, whose hands are fixed, kneeling, forced to confess. Quite a lot of meaning to unpack in a single character.”

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Ian Williams made an important observation in UK-based publication Spectator in January 2022. In this article titled, How China Spies on the West, he mentioned, “The word Qingbao in Chinese means both ‘intelligence’ and ‘information’, and it neatly encapsulates the unique nature and breadth of a China’s vast spying system, which combines formal and informal techniques, both overt and covert, to obtain new intelligence. There is often a fine line between theft and the voluntary transfer of know-how, and China has pushed the latter to the limit. Over the years, the CCP has built a comprehensive system for spotting and acquiring foreign technologies by multiple means.” Deceptive narrative about ‘Thousand Grains of Sand Theory’ For a long time, China has been able to deceive the rest of the world by popularising ‘Thousand Grains of Sand’ theory. This theory was floated by former FBI agent and China analyst Paul D Moore in the 1990s and since then it has been used extensively to explain the Chinese approach when it comes to spying in other countries. Let’s try and understand the Thousand Grains of Sand theory. Moore explained it: “If a beach were a target, the Russian would send in a sub, frogmen would steal ashore in the dark of night and collect several buckets of sand and take them back to Moscow. The US would send over satellites and produce reams of data. The Chinese would send in a thousand tourists, each assigned to collect a single grain of sand. When they returned, they would be asked to shake out their towels. And they would end up knowing more about the sand than anyone else.” The conclusion is that the Chinese collect heavy volumes of low-grade information and their spying tradecraft is low-tech, low-grade and is no match to the spying capabilities of the West or other big countries like India. Nothing can be farther than the truth. But credit must be given to the Chinese agencies that they have successfully created this deceptive narrative that it works on the basis of the ‘Thousand Grains of Sand’ approach. Peter Mattis busts the myths perpetrated by Chinese agencies and lapped up by many China analysts in ‘The Analytic Challenge of Understanding Chinese Intelligence Services’. Mattis says, “Many, perhaps most, US observers of Chinese intelligence have argued that the Chinese think about and collect intelligence in ways fundamentally different from Western or even Russian intelligence. In large measure this perception stems from Chinese attempts to acquire, legally and otherwise, Western technology information to support Chinese modernisation and economic priorities. These efforts have been equated with Chinese intelligence collection and have been labelled the ‘mosaic’ or ‘grains of sand’ approach. Chinese intelligence, it has been argued in this context, has four basic tenets: • Chinese intelligence focuses on ethnic Chinese as sources; • It relies on amateur collectors rather than professional intelligence officers; • It does not use intelligence tradecraft familiar to Western services; • It pursues high volumes of low-grade (if not entirely unclassified) information. This view falls down on both conceptual and empirical grounds.” Many China analysts are now debunking the ‘thousand grains of sand approach and rightly so. The fact is that Chinese intelligence operations are extremely sophisticated and there isn’t any difference between them and the espionage networks of other major countries. Alex Joske explains in ‘Spies and Lies’, “The prevailing view until recently was instead that the (Chinese Communist) Party used a ‘thousand grains of sand’ approach to gather intelligence. This theory has since been thoroughly debunked, and its flaws help in understanding why the MSS (Ministry of State Security, the premier Chinese spy agency) and its influence operations have received so little scrutiny.” As per Joske, the central claim of this theory (thousand grains of sand) is that China relies on ad-hoc masses of ethnic Chinese amateurs to steal huge amounts of low-grade information, with relatively little involvement by professional spies and intelligence agencies. “It’s a catchy narrative with amusing imagery, but that’s about all it offers. Instead of looking for the structure, mission and intelligence officers behind the CCP’s influence efforts, the ‘grains of sand’ theory makes it easier to assume they’re largely autonomous and driven by ethnic Chinese patriots… Mattis criticised the theory for wrongly framing the threat in racial terms, when China’s intelligence agencies have comfortably recruited people without Chinese heritage. When Western governments also treated harassment and surveillance of ethnic Chinese communities as a minor concern, this helped the MSS face little resistance as it built up extensive foreign intelligence networks.” Difference between Chinese intelligence and other countries However, there is one major difference between Chinese intelligence and intelligence apparatus of other countries. Each intelligence service of China has two bosses-one a technical director who handles all day to day operations and second is a political boss who is a senior member of CCP. The political bosses ensure that the ideological moorings of these agencies remain intact and they are all perfectly aligned to fulfil the ‘Chinese Dream’ of becoming the most dominant global power while preserving the supremacy of the CCP. Immediately after taking reins of the CCP and Chinese establishment in 2012, President Xi Jinping had clearly set the centennial goal for China’s Communist dictatorship to become the single most dominant power in the world by 2049. The year 2049 marks 100 years of Communist dictatorship in China. CCP along with Chinese spy agencies are vigorously pursuing this Chinese dream. For the CCP and Xi Jinping, the Chinese espionage network is the most effective tool to dominate the world. The world can underestimate Chinese intelligence at its own peril! (This is the sixth and final part of the Chinese Spy Games series.) The writer, an author and columnist, has written several books. He tweets @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed are personal. 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