THE VULNERABILITIES OF THE CHINESE NATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEM

Article published on 19 Dec 2020

        The recent statements of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson reveal tensions between China and the Five Eyes alliance – USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zeeland. The Chinese spokesperson has used strong language, so one can understand that the Chinese government intends to respond in a tough way to the external interference in China's internal affairs, referring to the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group accusations regarding the Chinese politics toward Hong-Kong[1].

          In order to do a detailed analysis, we need to present a short history of the Hong-Kong mass protests against the Chinese government after UK returned that territory to China, in 1997:

Ø 1 July 2003: 500,000 inhabitants peacefully protest against legislation changes; the huge number of protesters compel the Chinese government to cancel the changes;

Ø 29 July 2012: tens of thousands of inhabitants peacefully protest against authorities’ attempts to amend the curriculum of the Hong Kong school system; some groups continue protests in August and September, by occupying areas around government buildings; the protests compel the Chinese government to cancel the changes;

Ø October-December 2014: 79 days of protests (named Umbrella Movement) against changes in electoral system; the actions are well-organized and take place in several areas simultaneously, involving tens of thousands of people; some core protest groups are noticed; the Police uses force and succeed to stop the demonstrations; the Chinese government does not cancel the legislative changes;

Ø 8 February 2016: approximately 300 persons violently protest against the government’s attempt to crack down on unlicensed food vendors in a city district; Police’ intervention is brutal and motivate some activists to join the protests; a new movement, which demands Hong-Kong independence, is noticed;

Ø August 2016: thousands of persons peacefully protest near government buildings, demanding Hong-Kong independence[2];

Ø 6 June 2019: 3,000 persons peacefully protest against legislation changes regarding extradition between Hong-Kong and mainland China;

Ø 9 June 2019: approximately one million people protest against legislation changes (the Police estimates 240,000 people; nevertheless, this is a huge number); clashes between Police and protesters take place;

Ø 12 June: tens of thousands of citizens violently protest and surround a government building; they clash with the Police forces for a few hours; violent core protest groups are noticed;

Ø 14 June: ”Mothers’ protest” – 6,000 people; government officials announce that the legislative changes that are subjects of protests are delayed  indefinitely;

Ø 16 June: approximately 2 million people protest, no significant violence;

Ø 21 June: students protest violently, some streets are blocked, the Police main building is under siege, many policemen are wounded;

Ø 30 June: pro-government demonstrations, attended by a lower number of people, by comparing with the previous anti-government ones;

Ø 1 July: violent demonstrations, the Legislative Council office is vandalized[3];

Ø 6 July 2019 – January 2020: frequent protests, extremely violent; it is difficult to assess the whole number of victims and the cost of damages (most of the sources provide only generalities or some figures for specific days; a general assessment is avoided); hundred of facilities were destroyed; according to some sources, 10,000 protesters were arrested and, among them, about 2,500 were convicted[4].

Ø Lately, throughout 2020: the restrictions imposed due to SarsCoV-2 pandemic have significantly diminished the protests, but have not stopped them.

Now, we can do a short analysis. Hong-Kong protests have caused huge economic losses and have shown that the Chinese government is not able to keep the control of own territory. For the Chinese leadership, this is very unpleasant. Chinese Foreign Ministry threatens some states. In the field of international relationships, the threat is extremely serious, especially when the strong language is used. Those states are accused of interference in China's internal affairs, by initiating and supporting the Hong-Kong protests. What does this mean? China is not able to deal with domestic threats which are the result of other states’ interference. Generally speaking, who threatens? The weaker one, which does not have the abilities and means to mitigate the dangers. If the Chinese government had been able to neutralize the core protest groups and to convince the majority of protesters to cease their actions, there would not been threats against other states. But the Chinese officials use their only weapon: threats against the states which allegedly initiated and supported the China domestic problems.

Behind the inability of the Chinese government to counter subversive operations on its own territory, we can notice the inefficiency of one of the Chinese national security system components: counterintelligence. 23 years after Hong-Kong was returned to China, the Chinese special agencies have not been able to gain the control of that area. One can easily notice this after the long period of violent protests. This means that the security of China has certain vulnerabilities.

The defensive counterintelligence field of a nation is, in fact, like a wall, and does not only consist of counterintelligence agencies. In fact, it is a system. First component of the system is the intelligence agencies which operate abroad, which can identify threats that originate in foreign countries. The second component is the border security agencies that prevent dangerous individuals, who pose threats for national security, to cross the border and also prevent forbidden stuff to be smuggled. The counterintelligence agencies, national and local ones, who identify the subversive groups, monitor and dismantle them, represent only the third component.  The fourth component is the Local Police forces, which deal with the subversive groups and their activities. The fifth component is the political leadership, both national and local, which, based on the information received from the counterintelligence agencies, conduct administrative activities and make laws that diminish public dissatisfaction and improve the government relations with the citizens.

How thing work? The agents who operate abroad identify the preparations for subversive actions on national territory, or find some clues about this. The government is alerted. The border Police, which also has some intelligence subunits, prevent the suspect individuals to enter the country and intercept the illegal transports of weapons, ammunition, propaganda materials, money and so on. National counterintelligence agencies identify the subversive groups, figure out their plans, locate the leaders, intercept their communications, locate their safe heavens and caches. Lately, the agencies conduct specific operations:  make the groups’ members inoffensive (not only by arresting them, there is a wide range of methods to compromise them), infill the subversive networks, raid the suspect locations. Local counterintelligence branches, based on the reports received from the central agency, identify the local members of the subversive groups and their supporters and find out the means and methods designed for anti-government actions. They also infill the protesting groups and compromise them using a wide range of techniques: spreading rumors, acting contrary to the slogans promoted by the core protest groups, leading the participants to the places that are not suitable for  protests and so on. The Police, using its own agents who are in contact with the inhabitants, asses the level of public support for the protests and identify the categories of citizens that join them. Based on reports received from counterintelligence agencies, Police send forces to protect the buildings that are targets for protesters and block certain routes which give advantages to them. Police also arrest members of violent groups, before joining the protests. Finally, based on the information received from the Police and from counterintelligence agencies, the government corrects some administrative aspects and changes the legislation, in order diminish public dissatisfaction. At the same time, the government conducts specific actions to influence the people, by sending representatives who are popular among the locals, organizing press conferences and so on.

As an example of a successful operation to prevent local protests: the Department of State Security and Ministry of Interior actions at Iași (Romania), in December 1989. They succeeded to prevent the anti-government protests organized in 14 December[5].

The Hong-Kong protests reveal a lot of vulnerabilities of Chinese national security system. The Chinese leaders have focused on economic expansion and have neglected the domestic security. The huge imbalance between the economic level and the national security causes serious problems and can affect the country. Naturally, we will notice improvements.

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[1] Article ‘Five Eyes’ could be poked blind if China’s sovereignty and security harmed, warns Chinese FM spokesperson, on-line publication Global Times, 19 November 2020, on Internet at https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1207378.shtml.

[2] Article A Brief History of Protest in Post-Handover Hong Kong, on-line publication Time, 20 June 2019, on Internet at https://time.com/5606212/hong-kong-history-mass-demonstrations-protest/.

[3] Martin Purbrick, article A Report Of The 2019 Hong Kong Protests, Asian Affairs publication, 14 October 2019.

[4] Article Arrests And Trials Of Hong Kong Protesters, on-line publication Kong Tsung-gan / 江松澗, on Internet at https://kongtsunggan.medium.com/arrests-and-trials-of-hong-kong-protesters-2019-9d9a601d4950.

[5] Alex Mihai Stoenescu, Istoria loviturilor de stat în România (History of Coup D’etats in Romania), volume 4, part I – ,,Revoluția din decembrie 1989” – o tragedie românească (December 1989 Revolution – A Romanian Tragedy), RAO publishing house, 2012, page 23-62.