As U.S. spies look to the future, one target stands out: China

Enlarge this image
toggle caption
Ian Morton/NPR

Ian Morton/NPR

It ‘s pretty rare for U.S. spies to gather at a conference and talk openly about the most press national security threats. “ I ‘ve got to tell you all, it ‘s therefore curious after 27 years of being in the clandestine service, to see your movie and your bio pop up, ” said Cynthia Saddy, a retired CIA policeman. As she spoke to a ballroom filled with current and early intelligence officials at a resort in Sea Island, Ga., a huge screen displayed her photograph and the high-octane positions she held at the agency, including chief of staff in the Directorate of Operations. One early CIA director, Michael Hayden, joined the Cipher Brief Threat Conference about and helped set the spirit as he shared the advice he gave to the stream CIA film director, William Burns.

“ First of wholly, you ‘ve got to go to China. And then second of all, you ‘ve got to go go to China. And the third base one is, you ‘ve got to go to China. And he said, ‘OK, I got it, ‘ ” Hayden recounted.

The U.S. news community focused on the Soviet Union for decades. then the priority was Middle East terrorism. now, the intelligence community says, a newly era has begun .

“ I call this entering the one-third era of news, ” said Sue Gordon. In a series of high-level jobs, she provided intelligence briefs to five of the past six presidents before retiring in 2019 as the principal deputy film director of national intelligence. “ We kind of wake up up out of our counterterrorism grogginess to realize that the global had become digital, and that we had n’t been focusing on all the things we needed to, ” she said. “ The rise of China happened during those years, and now you see us talking about Great Power competition. ”

Enlarge this image
toggle caption
Andy Wong/AP

Andy Wong/AP

A CIA center devoted to China

CIA Director Burns has apparently embraced all this advice. After reviewing the CIA ‘s priorities, his first big move was announcing the institution of a China Mission Center to focus more on the area seen as the principal U.S. rival.

David Cohen, the no. 2 official at the CIA, told the conference this means more resources will be devoted to China, the different parts of the representation will more closely coordinate their work on China, and Burns will host a weekly meeting devoted entirely to that nation. “ What we ‘ve come to realize is that we need to enhance and synchronize our efforts around China, ” he said.

This comes as the U.S.-China competition heats up on several fronts, and China ‘s leader Xi Jinping talks increasingly about his state ‘s growing ball-shaped clout and what he views as the decline of the U.S. The U.S. intelligence community wants to know what Xi is thinking about Taiwan, where tensions have been rising. China ‘s recent trial of a hypersonic missile seemed to catch the U.S. by storm. And there ‘s the ongoing raceway for up-to-date technologies, like artificial intelligence.

Critics say this constant drumbeat of threat warnings about China can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, inflaming tensions with Beijing and leading the U.S. to overlook early likely flashpoints from Russia to Iran to North Korea.

David Cohen offered this reaction : “ I will hasten to add that we are the Central Intelligence Agency. We are not the China Intelligence Agency. ” silent, the league was a graphic demonstration of how the U.S. intelligence community is making a pivot to China. China’s massive intelligence operation focuses on technology

The current and early officials say that no state — not flush the Soviet Union at its bill — spied on the U.S. in such a comprehensive way as China nowadays does. “ They ‘ve got more people than we could ever dream of having. They are going to collect as much data as they can get, put it in a big datum pool and and use artificial intelligence, use machine process to then target us, ” said Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA chief of staff. “ I mean, it is chilling. ”

China pursues traditional spying targets — government and military secrets. But Beijing wants much, much more. China is unique in its brush, systematic approach path to gather up-to-date engineering from U.S. companies and universities. So how should the U.S. protect itself ?

“ Our arrangement is very set up to fight a nation-state. It focuses on things that are illegal, things that are a direct military application. What we ‘re seeing now, and particularly the focus in academia, in commerce, ” said Anna Puglisi, a erstwhile intelligence official who focused on China. She ‘s now at Georgetown University ‘s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “ It ‘s a very, very different terror than we had in the by. ”

She says academia in particular has a spirit of sharing, and is much loath to impose restrictions. “ We do get a draw of pushback on that because ( academics ) will say, ‘Well, this is open research, ‘ ” she said. “ And that is so truthful. We do n’t want to stem that. But what ‘s key is our academics should have the choice of when they share their information and when they do n’t. ” China had more than 300,000 students at U.S. universities, far more than any other country, before the COVID pandemic reduced the numbers. many study in high-tech fields and are involved in crucial research.

Bill Evanina, who led many government investigations into the larceny of intellectual property, says the U.S. should n’t close the door to top-flight students from China and elsewhere. But, he argues, universities need a better understand of the risks. After leaving government this class, he set up a company that helps schools protect themselves in the STEM fields.

“ It ‘s the little symmetry of people that we have to be concerned about, the graduate STEM earth, where ( China ‘s politics ) is looking to obtain research and intelligence that ‘s going to help their military and academic global, ” he said. A hard target to spy on Another key point is that China is a notoriously hard prey for the U.S. to spy against because of its tight internal security and omnipresent surveillance.

The U.S. may want to collect more news on China, but it ‘s hard to make that happen, said Paul Kolbe, a former CIA officer who now runs the intelligence project at Harvard ‘s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

“ You ca n’t flip a trade and on the spur of the moment have a stable of chinese assets, capital penetrations of the inner sanctum of government, ” Kolbe said. “ You have to develop officers who know the speech, the culture, and that can establish deep relationships of trust that are required to do agent operations. ” U.S. news agencies went through an renovation after the 9/11 attacks. Agencies that had been geared toward the Soviet Union and Russia for decades suddenly found themselves in need of Arabic speakers with a deep cognition of Islamist extremism.

therefore where does the CIA recruit these new officers ? The ideal campaigner would be a fluent Mandarin speaker, with an advanced degree in artificial intelligence — and a willingness to work for a government wage.

“ So that is quite a unicorn, right ? It ‘s not slowly, but they ‘re out there, ” said Cynthia Strand, who retired concluding year after 35 years at the CIA.

She ‘s now at a private company called Primer, which uses artificial intelligence to sort through huge volumes of data, find particular information, and then summarize it and translate it from, say, Mandarin to English.

“ Imagine if you had a big cell of a good interns, ” Strand said. “ You want to put them on the tasks where they can cut their teeth and learn, and leave the higher think bring to people who have been trained and practicing for a long clock. ”

She says homo intelligence remains critical, but engineering keeps leaping forward.

“ No one, no homo being, no topic how especial they are, can consume and make feel of the volumes of data that are available. Machines can do that beautifully, ” Strand added. It ‘s just one exemplar, she says, of how engineering is redefining spycraft for a new era — an earned run average that ‘s here to stay. Greg Myre is an NPR home security correspondent. Follow him @ gregmyre1 .