Many hundreds of Americans of high interest to the Chinese intelligence services are visiting Beijing right now. Thus, whatever else comes of it, China will successfully exploit President Donald Trump’s state visit for intelligence collection purposes. The only question is how successful the Ministry of State Security and China’s military intelligence apparatus will be.
Those traveling with Trump should have brought temporary “burner” cellphones, laptops, and other electronic devices. As soon as their trip home begins, those devices should be put in signal-isolating Faraday bags (ones that work) and then destroyed. Factory resets will not do anything except make the Chinese smile.
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After all, the Chinese intelligence services voraciously pursue any information of possible value to the Chinese Communist Party. Acting aggressively and globally, China poses an unparalleled intelligence threat to the United States. Xi Jinping’s cyber/signal/electronic intelligence activity against the U.S. is greater than that of all other nations combined. In Beijing, Chinese intelligence officers can read keystrokes and images from devices that are disconnected from the internet, even without camera surveillance. They can insert nearly undetectable, replicating, and, should they desire, device-to-device transmissible malware into any device connected to the internet or a cellular network. They can sometimes do so when a device is turned off or otherwise disconnected.
Hence, why government and military personnel who need to send sensitive messages from Beijing will only do so from the U.S. Embassy’s secure information facilities (the president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and War Secretary Pete Hegseth will have secure communication tents established in their hotel rooms).
What about everyone else?
Unfortunately, even prudent use of burner devices by traveling Americans only goes so far. At a minimum, the Chinese will be able to listen to burner phone calls, read sent or received messages, and steal the cellphone numbers and email addresses of anyone saved as a contact or communicated with. Hotel cleaning staff will be joined or fully staffed by Ministry of State Security officers. Any devices left in hotel rooms will be highly vulnerable to being physically scoured or implanted with malware that can hide and then transfer itself to any other devices or servers that the burner device later connects with.
Any information collected will be used in the moment to develop future means of intelligence targeting and collection, and to serve the darker intelligence arts of blackmail and manipulation. Ultimately, China will be most focused not on what it can steal from burner devices today, but rather what its penetration today can provide in intelligence value one year, five years, or 10 years down the line.
Consider how China could possibly blackmail a U.S. government official if it finds out said official has been acting as a source for a journalist on the trip. What if China waits until that official takes on a far more senior position in a future Vance or Rubio administration? What if China learns a Secret Service agent is having an affair? What if it learns that an Air Force One steward is deep in debt? The Chinese axiom “Hide your strength, bide your time” is oft referenced, but never sufficiently so.
Moreover, there’s no question that this trip offers China a goldmine of intelligence targets.
They include the Secret Service, Diplomatic Security Service, and Army CID agents, respectively protecting Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth. Then there are the military personnel assigned to Air Force One and its support aircraft. Don’t forget the “Football” nuclear suitcase carriers. Nor the behemoth White House military office, which provides communications and medical support to the president. Then there are dozens, if not hundreds, of advisers, translators, protocol officers, and other government officials. Some higher-ranking officials are also likely to bring family members with them (offering indirect access to the primary target). Hundreds of American journalists are covering Trump’s trip, many of whom have sources across the administration, Congress, and the federal bureaucracy. Finally, there are the American corporate titans, including Elon Musk, and the CEOs of Apple, Boeing, Micron, Goldman Sachs, and others.
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All it takes is for one of these individuals to make one mistake. A good number will likely do so. Even then, other threats abound. If anyone on this trip was a victim of one of China’s previous mass hacks, such as the 2015 Office of Personnel Management and 2017 Equifax breaches, they may be approached for recruitment. Or they might simply run into a very attractive South Korean tourist at a Beijing bar or tourist spot. And then find out that said tourist is actually a Ministry of State Security officer. This happened in 2008, when a senior adviser to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had his phone stolen when he invited a woman he had met at a Shanghai bar back to his hotel room.
In short, as far as possible, Americans in Beijing should take a digital timeout.
