Chinese Spy Targeted US Think Tank Events

Here is more from the Washington Post:

A Singaporean man pleaded guilty in Washington on Friday to acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government by identifying potential recruitment targets for Beijing’s intelligence services while working in Washington as an academic researcher and foreign policy consultant on China.

Dickson Jun Wei Yeo, 39, a doctoral degree candidate at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, pleaded guilty as charged in a one-count June 11 criminal information before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutka.

A George Washington University (GWU ) spokeswoman confirmed that Yeo was a visiting scholar for six months in 2019 but had no employment or student relationship, nor did he receive any kind of funding from the university.

Yeo used his time as a GWU fellow from January to July 2019 to network with individuals with lobbying firms and defense contractors at events and think tank talks, according to the statement of offense.

Under the direction of Chinese intelligence, he said, he was instructed to spot targets in sensitive positions who were dissatisfied with their work or having financial difficulties.

The article notes that Yeo was recruited by intelligence contacts who claimed to represent Chinese-based think tanks and offered him money in exchange for political and economic intelligence.

The contacts reportedly approached him in 2015 while a doctoral student at the National University of Singapore during a visit to Beijing for a presentation he made.

The news comes as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been cracking down on Chinese spies in academia.

Here is a Wired piece on China's five steps for recruiting spies.

New Book Highlights Chinese Intelligence Operations Using Think Tanks

The Daily Mail has published some adaptations from a forthcoming book by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg entitled "Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Community Party is Reshaping the World."  Here are a few excerpts:

Chinese intelligence agencies have spent years cultivating relationships in Western universities and think-tanks, partly with the aim of winning friends over to the CCP’s point of view.

One of the most important organisations for this work is the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, whose 400 members include Chinese intelligence officers. Its stock-in-trade is academic exchanges and conferences, which are used as a way of gaining entry to the most closed circles of a host country.

It holds an annual dialogue with the EU’s Institute for Security Studies in Paris, and has met regularly with influential Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss cyber security.

These dialogues provide opportunities not only to create networks for intelligence gathering, but also shape the thinking of American and European experts, by, for example, presenting China as the victim of cyber intrusions and casting doubt on the U.S.’s ability to attribute hacking to China.

The authors also note that Chinese intelligence agents have posed as think tank staff in order to befriend people overseas and lure them to China for supposedly nefarious purposes.

Russia Jails Think Tanker for Selling Secrets to German Firm

Here is more from Reuters:

A Russian court jailed a Russian think-tank expert specializing in military affairs to seven years on Thursday after convicting him of treason for allegedly selling secrets to a German consulting firm.

The court in Saint Petersburg said Vladimir Neyelov had admitted to selling information linked to how the Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, trains and retrains its operational staff. But, it said, Neyelov did not consider the data classified.

The trial was held behind closed doors because of what the court said was its classified nature, and details of the case have not been made public. The court did not name the German consulting company. 

Prior to his arrest in 2018, Neyelov had written about private military contractors and worked for two think tanks including one called the Centre for the Study of Strategic Outlooks, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper said. 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) said that Neyelov worked with Moscow's Center for Strategic Forecasting.

Images Released by Think Tank Provide First Look at New Chinese Aircraft Carrier

Here is more from CNN:

New satellite images published by a US think tank may provide the world's first look at China's next aircraft carrier, as construction progresses on a mysterious large vessel in a shipyard outside Shanghai.

Significant new activity at the Jiangnan Shipyard was captured in satellite images from April, published by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

According to CSIS, they show a massive bow and main hull section of a large vessel under construction. At points, the hull section is as wide as 40 meters (131 feet). 

Experts said while it was difficult to be sure, the size and scale of the new vessel strongly suggested China's much-anticipated new aircraft carrier, referred to as Type 002.

Rumors that the Chinese military was constructing a third, more modern aircraft carrier have been circling for more than a year. It was only in November that state media Xinhua first hinted at a new vessel.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post about CSIS using satellite intelligence to track various Asian island disputes.

CSIS Continues to Monitor China Via Satellite

Here is more from Fox News:

China appears to have constructed a new platform at a remote part of the disputed South China Sea that could be used for military purposes, according to satellite images reviewed by a U.S. think tank on Tuesday.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies said the "modest new structure" appears to be anchored on Bombay Reef, and is topped by solar panels and a radome. A radome is an enclosure that protects radar equipment.

"The development drew attention given Bombay Reef’s strategic location, and the possibility that the structure’s rapid deployment could be repeated in other parts of the South China Sea," the group said in its report.

Earlier in November, CSIS used satellite images to detect secret North Korean missile sites.

Fake Chinese Think Tank Accounts Used for Spy Efforts on French

This is from the Epoch Times:

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to recruit or spy on thousands of French experts using fake LinkedIn accounts, according to Le Figaro.

Several hundred people have been compromised, the French paper reported.

Chinese agents targeted some 4,000 French individuals, including civil servants, scientists, high-level managers, and other influential figures, Le Figaro reported on Oct. 23. Of that figure, about 1,700 are employed or otherwise involved with national institutions.

The agents use fake LinkedIn accounts to present themselves as entrepreneurial representatives, think tank members, or consultants, who offer all-expenses-paid trips to China to the experts they are trying to recruit.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece about Chinese think tankers being targeted by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Think Tank Land Becoming Playground for Spies

Hacked US government emails show that certain experts at think tanks are being heavily targeted by foreign spy agencies.  Here is more from Foreign Policy:

A 2016 document from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and obtained by FP, warned that there have been more than a dozen recent cases of U.S. think tanks being hacked, including one breach that involved stealing data on Russia-Turkey relations. The document, which is marked “For Official Use Only,” says, “Cyber actors likely will continue to target think tanks and similar organizations, as many maintain significant connections to US government information and personnel, especially foreign policy officials.” The DHS did not respond to a request for comment.

Think Tank Watch has reported several times about Russian scholars at Western think tanks being targeted by foreign spies, and we have documented that nearly every major US think tank has been hacked over the past few years.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch post on how a Chinese think tank was used to recruit a US spy.

Chinese Think Tank Used to Recruit US Spy

Here is more from Foreign Policy:

Caught with a bag of cash and an electronic device used to communicate with his handlers, a former government official with years of military and intelligence experience is accused of spying for China.

[Kevin] Mallory allegedly provided several classified government documents to a Chinese contact, who initially claimed affiliation with a prestigious Chinese think tank, in exchange for cash.

A Chinese handler posing as an employee of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) made contact with Mallory during trips to China in March and April.

The SASS is a reputable and internationally known think tank.  But it also maintains a close working relationship with the Shanghai State Security Bureau, a regional office of the Ministry of State Security, China's intelligence arm.

Chinese think tanks, including SASS, often work closely with the Ministry of State Security.  China's spy arm prefers to meet sources inside China, and social science academics provide a useful front for intelligence and influence operations.

Some intelligence-linked Chinese think tanks also maintain a known presence in Washington.  One of those is the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.  The institute actively engages in the Washington think tank ecosystem and also invites US officials and academics for events in Beijing.  The Center for Strategic and International Studies...has co-hosted numerous cybersecurity dialogues with the Chinese institute in recent years.

For more than two decades, the institute has sent a fellow to Washington, who stays for a year or two...

The Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) is ranked as the 35th best think tank among the countries of China, India, Japan, and South Korea, according to the latest University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings.

Think tanks in both the US and overseas are popular with spies, and a large number of spies are housed within policy shops while others are trying to spy on think tanks (and scholars) themselves.

In related news, Bill Gertz of The Free Beacon just reported that the Chinese spy network in the US may include 25,000 spies.

Mission of Russian Spy: Target Think Tanks

Jack Barsky (also known as Albrecht Dittrich), a former Russian spy, has recently gone on record about details of the spying operations he was expected to partake in during his time in the United States.  Here is an excerpt from The Guardian:

Dittrich was given his mission: to establish contacts with foreign policy think tanks, and in particular President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski.  He was given little guidance as to how he should do this, or even how best to blend into US society. The people who trained him had little feeling for the real fabric of America, its visceral, unquantifiable essence. “It’s as if they had spent time looking at fish swimming in an aquarium, and now they are training you to be a fish,” Barsky says. “But they don’t actually know what it’s like to be a fish.”

The book Deep Undercover by Mr. Barsky says that he was expected to establish contacts with people connected to "influential think tanks such as the Hudson Institute, the Columbia University Institute of Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission."

Think tanks have been a hotbed a spy recruitment for decades.  Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on which think tanks spies like.  It is no secret that think tanks are filled with former spies.

While human intelligence still goes on at think tanks, these days much of the spying is done through signals intelligence, with nearly every single large think tank facing serious breaches in recent years.

Here is a recent story by Molly Ball on Washington spy paranoia, with several mentions of think tanks.

US Intel Agency Says Russia Targeted Think Tanks

A new report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) confirms many previous reports from the media and cybersecurity firms in saying that Russian has been hacking into think tanks.  Here is an excerpt:

We assess Russian intelligence services collected against the US primary campaigns, think tanks, and lobbying groups they viewed as likely to shape US policy...Immediately after Election Day, we assess Russian intelligence began a spearphishing campaign targeting US Government employees and individuals associated with US think tanks and NGOs in national security, defense, and foreign policy fields.  This campaign could provide material for future influence efforts as well as foreign intelligence collection on the incoming administration's goals and plans.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on Russia's alleged targeting of think tanks during the election season.  Nearly every major US think tank has been targeted by foreign intelligence agencies over the past few years.

The Think Tank Connection of Accused Spy Edward Lin

This is what Newsweek is reporting about Edward Lin, the naval flight officer accused of leaking sensitive information to either China or Taiwan (or both):

Among Lin’s Chinese contacts on LinkedIn was a former Washington, D.C.–based Taiwanese military attaché whose job was to “file intelligence reports on current statuses and events of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to superiors in the home navy force.” Another Taiwanese who endorsed Lin listed himself as a current “security manager” for Apple who previously worked high up in Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense, where he was “responsible for U.S. and European think tanks engagement,” an intelligence-oriented billet. A former senior British nuclear submarine commander, who served as a Royal Navy liaison officer in Washington, D.C., from 2012 to 2015, also endorsed Lin for various military and communication skills.

Think Tank Watch has written extensively about think tank spying in the past, including in this 2013 post entitled "Think Tanks a Hotbed for Spy Recruitment."

BAE: Reading Think Tank Reports Can Harm Your Company

The threats intelligence department of  defense giant BAE Systems says that even though think tanks have been the subject of targeted cyber attacks for quite some time, it has seen a particularly aggressive campaign against think tanks over the past year.

BAE says that think tanks are attractive targets because they have an unusual combination of a high level of trust among the participants with relatively low resources for defense.

In a video with James Hatch, Director of Cyber Services at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, the attacks against think tanks are described in more details:

Attackers want to access think tank network for two purposes:  Firstly, they are interested in the conversations and policy discussions that go on within those organization, and secondly, they are interested in using them as staging posts to attack major corporations and government departments.  They'll do this either by compromising email infrastructure to be able to set up spearfishing attacks or by compromising websites to be able to set up watering hole attacks.

We recently investigated an attack on a major think tank where their website was compromised.  The compromise was undertaken using an exploit that had only been publicly known about for a few days.  Anyone who accessed the website would have had software downloaded on their machine that would have given a toehold to the attackers.  Given the nature of that think tank, most of the people accessing that website would have been doing so from the machines of major corporations.  We traced the attack group to be a nation-state with a particular interest in commercial espionage.

In other words, think tanks could very likely be exposing your business to cyber attacks and espionage. 

As Think Tank Watch has reported, during the past few years, it has been publicly (and privately) disclosed that nearly every major US think tank has been hacked.  Besides attacks on Heritage and Urban Institute, Think Tank Watch has documented hacks on think tanks such as the Aspen Institute, Brookings, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Center for American Progress (CAP), Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).