APPENDIX X

PLA3 CYBER-BASES

THE TWELVE CYBER-BASES OF THE PLA3

1st Bureau (Unit 61786): responsible for PLA security.

2nd Bureau (Unit 61389): specializing in cyber-attacks against Anglophone countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia).

3rd Bureau (Unit 61785): specializing in intercepting intelligence communications in neighbouring countries, including Taiwan and Korea.

4th Bureau (Unit 61419): Japan and North and South Korea.

5th Bureau (Unit 61565): Russia.

6th Bureau (Unit 61726): South and South-East Asia (particularly Taiwan, from the Wuhan station in Hubei province).

7th Bureau (Unit 61580): responsible for the coordination of a dozen regional satellite offices within China.

8th Bureau (Unit 61046): covering Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

9th Bureau (Unit 61221): analysis of strategic intelligence, monitoring of the PLA’s IT equipment.

10th Bureau (Unit 61886): Russia and Central Asia, with a special role for missile surveillance.

11th Bureau (Unit 61672): a third bureau monitoring Russian communications.

12th Bureau (Unit 61486): interception of intelligence particularly from branches of European, Japanese and Korean companies.

These bureaus are distinct from the TRB, the PLA3’s Technical Reconnaissance Bureaus (jishu zhencha ju), which provided interception and communications for seven military regions before being regrouped into the five new theatres of combat and integrated into the Strategic Support Force (SSF) under Xi Jinping’s reorganization in 2016. These include Unit 78006, which is the TRB of the former Chengdu military region covering Tibet and Xinjiang (see Chapter 14).

They are also distinct from internet spying stations like Unit 61398, located in Pudong, Shanghai, which had its moment of glory in 2013, when the US authorities held it responsible for multiple cyber-attacks in the United States.

Sources: Mark A. Stokes, Jenny Lin and L. C. Russell Hsiao, The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Signals Intelligence and Cyber Reconnaissance Infrastructure, Project 2049 Institute, 11 November 2011; Dean Cheng, Cyber Dragon, op. cit.; interview with intelligence specialist Jason Pan, Taipei Times, March 2015.