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Cracking Down on Foreign Espionage Channels
By Peter Mattis
On February 4, the Central Military Commission (CMC) issued a new revision of the Military Grassroots Construction Guidelines (jundui jiceng jianshe gangyao)
for People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel. The guidelines and the
accompanying press articles highlighted leadership and PLA concerns on
managing foreign espionage threats as well as leaks through personal
electronics, despite the far-reaching changes across PLA personnel
policies suggested by the outline. The guidelines contain little related
to counterintelligence concerns that Chinese authorities had not
already said or governed by existing rules. The repeated revision and
reiteration of such regulations, like the updated Counterespionage Law
(previously the State
Security Law) passed last fall, suggests China’s counterintelligence
authorities are seeing a lot of disconcerting behavior by Chinese
civilian and military officials or hostile activity that they cannot
explain or trace back to leaks. Ultimately, these guidelines reflect the
continuing insecurity of a China that, prior to Reform and Opening,
once shut down foreign espionage, but, after opening up, has faced
foreign intelligence services increasingly capable of accessing China’s
secrets. Foreign espionage is just one facet of the leadership’s warning
that “China is facing unprecedented security risks” and a broader
security crackdown ordered by President Xi Jinping.
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