They are adept at hacking and harassing dissidents. But in other areas they have a lot to learn
. In the days after the invasion, Chinese officials quizzed foreign counterparts about the situation on the ground. Before the war, a foreign diplomat in Beijing recalls Chinese interlocutors confessing that they had limited understanding of central and eastern Europe, but were fortunate to have the Russians to explain it for them.
China has got better at human intelligence, too. Some American officials blame a Chinese mole—as well as a compromised communication system—for the jailing or execution of manysources in China between 2010 and 2012. China’s spies have moved beyond the ethnic Chinese sources they used to rely on, often using stolen data to identify those with vulnerabilities, and making approaches remotely via LinkedIn and other social media.
Another Chinese blind spot is intelligence analysis, which is hobbled by a political culture that offers few incentives to take initiative or challenge orthodoxy. Junior and mid-ranking Chinese intelligence officers lack sufficient status to make potentially risky calls when interpreting raw intelligence. Those are usually made by officials at the vice-ministerial level or above. And even they may shy from passing on assessments that conflict with Mr Xi’s wishes or worldview.
Running such assets also requires tradecraft, another long-running Chinese weakness . In a study of 595 documented cases of Chinese espionage, mostly since 2000, Mr Eftimiades found that in 218 cases, the organisations and individuals involved used little or no tradecraft or did not make any significant attempts to hide their activity. Last year China suffered an embarrassment when Afghanistan expelled about a dozen suspected Chinese spies.
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