Last Friday, two former officers of France’s foreign intelligence service (CIA equivalent) were sentenced to long prison terms for spying for China. Their treason convictions illustrate China’s growing success in human intelligence recruitment.
Inside the General Directorate for External Security, these convictions will be viewed as extremely painful. Both officers were respected employees, with one formerly serving as DGSE’s top officer, or station chief, in Beijing. That officer, named only as “Henri M.,” was apparently recalled from Beijing to Paris in 1998 after having an affair with the then-ambassador’s Chinese interpreter. Henri returned to China after his retirement, marrying the interpreter and relocating to Hainan.
Interestingly, both officers were arrested at the same time in December 2017 after they had retired. News of their detentions was first reported by Quotidien in May 2018.
Le Monde reports that one of the men, “Pierre Marie H.,” was arrested upon landing in Switzerland with a bag full of cash after meeting a Chinese intelligence officer on an unidentified island in the Indian Ocean. Notably, Pierre Marie H.’s wife was also convicted of supporting his spying. How the DGSE found out about the betrayal is not clear, but considering how tightly guarded the Chinese would keep these French sources, the detection was likely either a result of DGSE recruiting their own high-level Chinese intelligence source or, more likely, receiving U.S. intelligence. I make that latter suggestion because the CIA and NSA are the two only allied intelligence services with the capacity to monitor active Chinese intelligence operations on a global scale.
But the two men obviously gave China information of great value. Had they not done so, the French government would likely not have brought charges, instead preferring to sweep this huge scandal under the rug. The French intelligence tradition is one of extreme dislike for public scrutiny. This includes parliamentary scrutiny, which the DGSE has a penchant for openly flouting. DGSE’s willingness to admit this failure and address it so publicly is thus deserving of special credit.
That said, this is a wake-up call, and not just for the French. China’s Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army intelligence units have spent the past decade steadily advancing their penetration of Western democratic institutions such as the European Union and high-technology institutions across the United States. These campaigns reflect the truly massive scale of Chinese foreign intelligence recruitment.
Where Chinese intelligence was once largely reliant on Russian guidance and its vast internal counterintelligence apparatus to operate, its embassies now host large, ambitious, and capable intelligence stations. China is confident it can use these stations and its unparalleled number of nonofficial cover officers (spies acting outside of diplomatic cover), to recruit many more “Henri M.’s” in the future.
Beijing has also taken advantage of European desperation for Chinese investment and U.S. distraction. Banking on politicians not wanting to raise a fuss, China’s embassy stations have conducted very aggressive operations that would otherwise see its officers expelled much more frequently. Of crucial note here is China’s industrial-scale cybertheft of information and telecommunications network access efforts. These activities, Beijing believes, will enable it to identify and recruit government officers who are vulnerable to bribery or blackmail.
In short, it might be DGSE’s turn to be red-faced today, but other Western intelligence services are sure to have their own moments in the future.
