Western intelligence agencies are struggling to contain escalating Chinese espionage activities, as China has come to rely on security agencies, private companies, and even civilians to gather information on a vast and unprecedented scale. Western concerns are also growing that an economic slowdown in China could lead to a greater escalation in espionage operations, which in turn could increase the likelihood of a confrontation between Beijing and the West.

A report published by The Wall Street Journal noted that rarely a week goes by without a warning from a Western intelligence agency about the threat posed by China through its espionage activities in its quest to undermine rival nations and bolster its economy.

Last month, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said a government-linked Chinese company had hacked 260,000 internet-connected devices, including cameras and routers in the United States, Britain, France, Romania, and other countries.

A congressional investigation said that Chinese-made shipping cranes used in American ports contain embedded technology that could be secretly controlled by Beijing. The U.S. government also recently alleged that a former top aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul engaged in espionage activities for China.

American Counter-Espionage Campaign

Last week, U.S. officials launched a campaign to trace the repercussions of the latest Chinese hack, which targeted systems used by the federal government for court-authorized wiretap requests.

Calder Walton, a national security expert at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, says that given the deep entanglement of the global economy, the ability of individuals and companies to be cautious in dealings with China is an extremely daunting task.

For its part, Beijing continuously denies allegations of spying on Western countries, while asserting that it is a constant target of foreign hacking and intelligence-gathering operations.

Since taking power in 2012, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of national security, urging officials and ordinary citizens alike to fend off threats to China’s interests. The result, according to the report, is a wide-ranging information-gathering effort whose scale surpasses Soviet espionage efforts during the Cold War.

Massive Espionage Programs

According to U.S. intelligence, the number of Chinese-backed hackers outnumbers the FBI’s cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1. FBI Director Christopher Wray said earlier this year that “China’s hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation combined.”

One European agency estimates that Chinese intelligence-gathering and security operations involve up to 600,000 people.

Last May, Canadian intelligence officials said China likely attempted to interfere in a federal election, which included bussing Chinese students to vote for its preferred candidate.

Around the same time, Australian authorities sentenced a businessman with ties to the Chinese Communist Party for trying to court a government minister by donating $25,000 to a local hospital. This spring, seven Chinese spies were arrested in separate operations in Germany and Britain for obtaining a special laser device and shipping it to China without a license, spying on the European Parliament, and targeting dissidents.

Escalation of Chinese Espionage

The report noted that trade with China has supported economic growth in the West for decades, so most countries cannot afford the consequences of imposing sanctions on China and expelling its diplomats to curb espionage activities. This is expressed by Ken McCallum, the Director General of the British domestic intelligence service (MI5), who says, “China is different.”

The authors believe that Chinese espionage against the West may escalate as China’s economic growth slows. Western officials assert that Chinese intelligence agencies will come under increasing government pressure to steal the innovations needed to boost the economy and to silence critics at home and abroad. In this context, Nigel Inkster, a former director of operations at the British foreign intelligence service (MI6), says, “It’s all about preserving the security of the regime.”

Last September, U.S. authorities alleged that five Chinese graduates of the University of Michigan were found in the middle of the night taking pictures near military vehicles during a U.S. National Guard training exercise that included members of the Taiwanese military. They claimed they were stargazing.

Voter Records and Infrastructure

Earlier this year, the U.K. government said that hackers linked to China had gained access to the country’s voter registration records, which include about 40 million home addresses.

The U.S. government is currently investigating whether a China-linked espionage group infiltrated major broadband providers in the United States, which could potentially lead to access to the phone tapping devices of U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The FBI said earlier this year that China had taken control of hundreds of routers and used them to penetrate U.S. water and power grids, raising fears of a Chinese attack on American infrastructure if Washington were to impede any Chinese attempt to take control of Taiwan.

Beyond the United States, a number of analysts and officials have stated that China deployed malware on India’s power grids amid a border dispute in 2021 and targeted telecommunications networks in Guam, which hosts a large U.S. air base.

Different Rules of Espionage

Intelligence officials in the West say that China does not play by the old rules of espionage. It does not seem to care if its spies are caught, nor does it make an effort to exchange them when they are arrested.

The authors mentioned another factor that hinders Western intelligence from tracking Chinese espionage operations: its intelligence operations are decentralized and spread across countless agencies and private sector companies. They operate largely independently and with random methods, but they adhere to the overarching goals of the Chinese government.

The authors considered that this intelligence effort has turned into an obsession in recent years, especially in light of the political, economic, and technological rivalry between Beijing and Washington. Chinese paranoia was further fueled by claims from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that the United States had hacked Chinese infrastructure on a large scale, including mobile phone networks.