This book is the result of collaboration between Peter Mattis, an analyst of the modern People’s Republic of China (PRC) intelligence community, and Matthew Brazil, a historian of early Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence operations and a former corporate investigator. We hope that this material will be of interest to those seeking a clearer understanding of how China conducts espionage. Even though “everyone spies,” the methods by which the PRC pursues secret intelligence are too often shrouded in unnecessary mystery. This can lead to miscalculation, misunderstanding, and prejudice by governments protecting national security information and businesses protecting trade secrets. Perhaps more importantly, it distorts and harms bilateral relations between China and its important diplomatic and trading partners, particularly the United States and Japan.
The mystery is partly of our own making. This field is neglected by China watchers, sometimes to avoid somehow upsetting commerce or other institutional relations with China, but also because of the thin veil of the Chinese language. Many recently published works on Chinese espionage in English failed to pierce that veil or even to give it a fair go, using few if any Chinese-language sources. It is as if someone in Beijing wrote a book about the U.S. intelligence community without examining Englishlanguage sources.
As the reader can see in our bibliography, we have consulted numerous Chinese publications, books, and other materials. However, we believe that we have only scratched the surface. Few are more aware than the handful of authors who have delved into this arena of the vast and unexplored range of published Chinese-language works on intelligence, unofficial samizdattype literature, and unopened archives that will eventually bring additional clarity to this murky world.1 However, we hope that we have begun a more critical analysis of this darker corner of Chinese communist history and governance than is evident in the increasingly mythologized accounts that have come out of Beijing in recent times.
In writing a reference guide, we do not intend to provide the definitive answers but rather to introduce the history of intelligence within the CCP and the modern party-state. Systematically sketching the key figures, organizations, and espionage cases invites readers to draw their own conclusions about PRC intelligence services, their activities, and their methods. By contrast, much of the existing analysis and commentary about Chinese intelligence is anecdotal or drawn from the observations of security professionals who cannot speak freely. The experience of these professionals often is limited to a fraction of the PRC’s clandestine activity. Focusing only on economic espionage, the activities of intelligence services, united front work, or theft in cyberspace would result in misleading conclusions about what the PRC does in each of the other areas—reminiscent of the parable of the elephant and the blind men.2 By contrast, we make a broader attempt to explain what today’s PRC intelligence services do and the roots of their work in CCP history.
The value of a reference guide lies in making a lot of data easily accessible. Between the limitations of English-language works and the narrow lens through which most security professionals look at PRC intelligence, there is a need to shine a light across the breadth and historical depth of this activity. The needs of the present often require journalists and analysts to emphasize the new rather than the continuous. We hope this reference guide enables those who must meet the needs of today to see both continuity and novelty with greater clarity.
We are particularly grateful to David Chambers, James Mulvenon, Bob Suettinger, Frederick Teiwes, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on large portions of the manuscript. We are also grateful for the advice of Børge Bakken, Michael Dutton, Roger Faligot, João Guedes, Jianye He, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Wendell Minnick, Dahlia Lanhua Peterson, Steve Tsang, Bruce Williams, Peter Wood, Miles Maochun Yu, and the staffs of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley, and of the University Services Center at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
While those mentioned above and others who prefer anonymity provided generous help, we take responsibility for errors or omissions. The views expressed in this book are the authors’ alone and not those of the U.S. Government, CECC, or anyone in them.