Dark Jester
A political scholar with an interest in foreign interference. Traditional conservative. Came out of a family that fled communism and improved themselves thanks to capitalism but would consider myself a distributionist.
Anne Marie Brady has been effective at exposing the different influencing strategies and espionage tactics that China uses. However, one of the consequences is that the Chinese Communist Party will change their tactics. I believe that the Chinese may start or have started using Westerners, including New Zealanders, to continue acquiring technology with military uses.
In 2020, Anne Marie Brady published a paper titled ‘Holding a pen in one hand, gripping a gun in the other’ which exposed our universities’ links to institutions connected to the People’s Liberation Army. This paper also exposed how, through funding, investment, partnerships and acquisitions, technology and intellectual property had been stolen, and how students from Chinese institutions have been sent to do civilian research using the technology developed in Western universities which is then repurposed for military use. This has also involved partnerships and collaborations with different companies in the tech sector, which has led to the acquisition or gain of technology with military uses, including artificial intelligence, GPS tracking and voice recognition.
There has also been significant investment into our telecommunications industry with Huawei owning about 40% of our telecommunications market.
Now that these tactics have been exposed, the Chinese government and People’s Liberation Army will have to find new tactics in order to continue their espionage and theft of technology. It seems clear that up to this point, they have been using their own students and people. Therefore, it would seem plausible that the only option for China now is to use foreigners for their espionage activities.
This is not an entirely new concept. The Soviets infiltrated sleeper agents into America and England. However, their greatest achievement was recruiting Americans and British in the military or intelligence agencies who could get them information on what their enemies were planning. They did this in various ways; the most common was by blackmail.
The Soviets used ‘swallows’, operatives who would seduce their targets (usually married men with positions in government, military or intelligence) and then take photos of their targets in compromising positions. Their other principal method also involved seduction. The Soviets trained male spies to become ‘ravens’, who would seduce female employees of the government and convince them to steal documents.
The Soviets offered other incentives, including financial rewards or better jobs in the USSR. Finally, there were the Americans and the British who committed espionage for ideological reasons. The most famous example of this is the Cambridge Circus, a group of five men with important positions in the government who were also committed communists who believed that leaking information to the USSR was their duty to the revolution. Is it possible that the Chinese could adopt the same tactics?
I believe it is. In Anne Marie Brady’s 2017 paper ‘Magic Weapons’ one of the four ‘United Front’ strategies was ‘making the foreign serve China’, part of an effort to attract prominent foreigners to China in order to use them to promote a pro-China message. The strategy is used to attract foreign business people to invest and partner with Chinese companies, politicians to lobby for and encourage relations of their own countries with China, and media figures to Chinese media platforms. Therefore, it is not out of the question to recruit foreigners for espionage activities.
Various methods are available to the Chinese. They could use the old Soviet tactics of blackmailing government and military figures for information. They could offer money or high profile positions to these figures in exchange for intelligence. There have been rumours of prominent Western businessmen being approached or propositioned by beautiful Chinese women coming to their hotel door, which suggests that the Chinese are already looking into using the ‘foreign’. At present, the stories tell only how the businessmen are being blackmailed into investing or making deals with Chinese companies. However, this could escalate into being blackmailed into providing the research and intellectual property of their companies. For foreigners with business interests in China, the government could incentivise them to give up their products or information in exchange for favourable treatment.
Dr Brady’s 2020 paper only focused on academics who were responsible for the theft of technology and the use of students to do civilian research that could be used for military purposes. This means that the Chinese government could begin to target New Zealand academics to use them for espionage activities through blackmail, offers of financial reward or higher positions in academic institutions in China. Students could be recruited for ideological reasons.
In 1969, G Edward Griffin warned of infiltration of US leftist groups by the Soviets, who would aggravate and radicalise the groups and push them towards violent political action. He further warned of the Soviets particularly targeting the civil rights groups to persuade them that a violent overthrow of the system was the only option for change.
‘Magic Weapons’ also revealed that the CCP had successfully infiltrated the major political parties in New Zealand. Therefore, it is possible that the Chinese could infiltrate some of the communist and socialist groups in New Zealand and other Western nations and recruit students to commit acts of espionage and research technology for military use in the guise of civilian use. This could be done either through offers of scholarships and funding which could include doing their research at Chinese universities or doing research at Western universities with Chinese government funding exclusively, which means the technology would end up being acquired by the Chinese.
Are there any ways to combat this? I do have some ideas. First, we would need to provide security briefings to anyone visiting China on business, to inform them how to protect themselves from recruiting attempts. I would also recommend the same for any students doing research in engineering and technology. Particularly instructing them about offers for grants or investment are coming from. I would also advise any academic or student who is invited to study or do their research in China about how to resist any attempts to recruit them.
Any visiting academic or business company wanting to do a deal with New Zealand should be vetted to check whether they have visited or had dealings with China. It’s great to see that the New Zealand intelligence services have put protocols in place to investigate separate entities. However, I would like to see protocols for how to investigate these entities and criteria for launching such investigation.
Our universities also must have policies and processes in place to vet new potential staff members to ensure they don’t have CCP membership and that their alma mater is not connected to the People’s Liberation Army. Though it would sound discriminatory I would also recommend the vetting of students to see if their identities are genuine, and they should be vetted for any connections to PLA institutions.
Espionage is one of the greatest threats. But detecting it can only do so much. Our response should be based on what has been detected, which I argue this government has not done with its limited focus on investigating entities. While it has been good that Professor Anne Marie Brady has exposed the espionage activities of the CCP in New Zealand, that means they will readjust their tactics, which means New Zealand must readjust ours too.
Please share so others can discover The BFD.
