Chinese Intelligence Operations

Written by a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, this is a straightforward examination of the structure, operations and methodology of the intelligence services of the People's Republic of China. Eftimiades describes how the Ministry of State Security--China's preeminent civilian intelligence-gathering entity--draws on the services of diplomats, commercial representatives, Chinese communities in overseas cities and students. (The People's Republic sends approximately 40,000 students abroad annually.) His analysis of the case of Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a longtime CIA employee who was convicted of espionage in 1986, reveals much about Chinese operations in the United States. Although Eftimiades cautions that the Ministry of State Security will continue to penetrate and exploit the political, academic, industrial and technological institutions of Western nations, he adds reassuringly that China's intelligence apparatus is hobbled by its own red tape and hindered by the stultifying bureaucracy of the Chinese Communist Party. Of interest mainly to specialists. (Mar.)