2010: Glazunov on Chinese Spies in Russia

The Chinese Threat by O. N. Glazunov
From the series: If Tomorrow is War

Another translation from excepts of Russian books and articles about PRC intelligence operations inside the Russian Federation. This one by O.N. Glazunov was published in 2013.

The publisher promotes the book thus:

“What goals does China set for itself in the twenty-first century, and what methods are used to achieve this? What is China’s total espionage? What are Chinese spies doing in Africa and the Middle East? All of these questions and many others are answered in this book. This book is a unique opportunity to look into the holy of holies of the Chinese secret services that wrap their network around the globe (Africa, the Middle East, the United States and Europe). The book uses a large number of facts describing the worldwide nature of Chinese espionage. China’s secret services do not reduce their activity on the world stage of covert warfare.”

Translations made using DeepL and ChatGP3. My Russian language skills are elementary and vanishing. A variety of machine translation tools are making it easier even for target-language illiterates to access foreign language materials. Some of the points I made about online, cyber and AI translation tools for Chinese-English translation I made in my article Chinese Language Study and Translation Tools will likely be useful to people thinking along similar lines working on materials in Russian and many other languages.

Also in this series of translation of Russian online publications on Chinese intelligence operations:

• 2022: Russians Chasing Supposed Chinese Spies
• 2019: Russian View ‘Why Nobody Can Cope with Chinese Intelligence’
• 2010: From a Russian Perspective: History of PRC intelligence
• 2020: Deteriorating Sino-Soviet Relations and Chinese Intelligence
• 1970s: Chinese Infiltrators and Counterintelligence in the Soviet Far East
• 2012: Chinese Military Espionage Against Russia

Translated here is an online except from Chapter One of O.N. Glazunov’s book “History of the Special Services of Communist China” is translated in the previous posting here 2010: From a Russian Perspective: History of PRC intelligence; another Russian article covering that ground is 2020: Deteriorating Sino-Soviet Relations and Chinese Intelligence.

Chapter 3 Secret Operations of Chinese Intelligence Services in Russia [Excerpt]

China has a more intelligent political elite. China is economically stronger, and much larger investments are being made in China’s technological advancements than in Russian technological innovations. The Chinese people are more disciplined than the Russians, and at the same time, business operations in China are more inventive and diverse than in Russia.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Recently, a series of espionage scandals unfolded, related to attempts by Chinese businessmen to steal classified documentation and components related to military aviation and the navy from Russia and smuggle them to China with the help of Russian citizens. In three out of four publicly disclosed cases of Chinese espionage in the Russian Far East over the past two years, Russians were involved, including retired military and scientific personnel from defense institutions.

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“What are you afraid of? What’s your salary like? And they offer you three hundred ‘bucks,’ and that’s just for one section of the aviation unit’s combat regulations! There’s no risk! Besides, it’s not a secret anymore! You understand! Good people offer such money so that you share information with them.”

Major Alexander Artyukhov was persuasive. But Captain Vadim Nikolaev couldn’t understand what his comrade wanted from him.

“Wait. I don’t get it,” Nikolaev couldn’t make sense of it. “What people? What money? Who needs these regulations?”

Artyukhov, leaning closer on his chair, almost whispered in his comrade’s ear:

“Don’t be afraid! The people are reliable. There’s no trickery. I’ve known them for a long time, and there haven’t been any problems. Why are you staring at me like that? Did you see a spy or something? All the spies are in Moscow, in the Arbat military district! They’ve already sold all the secrets to the States or China. They’re swimming in money, while we count every penny! Seize the moment, make some cash! While there’s still demand! Everyone is trying to get by the best way they can. Only one like this remains…”

In many ways, Artyukhov was right. The town of Uglovoe, where they served, was a forgotten corner of the world. A dilapidated Air Force base. Meager salaries, no prospects for replacement, let alone promotion. Captain Vadim Nikolaev was no different from his comrades in that regard.

• “I need to think,” Nikolaev muttered.

A few days later, a phone call was heard in the reception area of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) office in the Primorsky Krai.

• “This is Captain Vadim Nikolaev. I have information of state importance. Can I meet with any officers?”

Thus began the operation code named “Vanya.” One of the dozens of others involving Chinese espionage in Russia. It should be noted that Russian intelligence agencies had not encountered such a level of military-industrial espionage before. Not only were classified instructions and drawings transported to China, but even components of military interceptors and combat missiles. Over the past few years, Chinese military espionage in Russia has become a problem of truly catastrophic proportions. Even FSB employees, who are usually reserved when it comes to China, are forced to openly discuss the seriousness of this problem. But let’s go through it step by step.

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In 1949, the People’s Republic of China was formed, which was in dire need of powerful intelligence and counterintelligence services. Mao sought help from the “elder” brother – the USSR.

At the end of 1949, to coordinate the activities of Soviet and Chinese intelligence, Colonel Rain, the former deputy resident in the United States who had acquired valuable sources on issues related to the creation of nuclear weapons, was sent to Beijing as an advisor on intelligence affairs to the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS). He stayed in China until 1951 and returned in 1953 as the deputy chief advisor to the Chinese Ministry of Defense (MOD), where he spent five years.

In 1957, Major General Vertiporokh, a former resident in Iran and Israel who ensured the security of the “big three” in Tehran and was the head of the sabotage department, became the senior advisor. In 1960, he was replaced by Lieutenant General Pitovranov, the former deputy minister of the Soviet Ministry of State Security (MGB).

A large number of Chinese military leaders either studied in the USSR or worked with the USSR through the Comintern. For example, the head of the Chinese intelligence Kan Shen graduated from a reconnaissance school in Moscow.

The Chinese understood that the Russians were also working against them. That’s the nature of espionage. Mao then asked to transfer all Soviet agents to the Chinese Ministry of State Security. As a result, the most idiotic decision was made. As a sign of fraternal friendship, Moscow decided to reveal all its agent connections to the Chinese. This was a serious mistake. Later, when the first military conflicts arose between the two countries, the Soviet intelligence agencies were left without agents. Those who were betrayed by the Chinese were either turned or shot. It is said that they were invited to local authorities under the pretense of receiving Soviet awards for successful work and were arrested on the spot.

In the late 1950s, the KGB effectively ceased its operations in China. In contrast to the Soviet intelligence agencies, Chinese intelligence repeatedly attempted to recruit agents among Soviet specialists working in China. Attempts were made to send their agents to our territory. One former employee of the KGB in the Primorsky Krai recalled that, for the purpose of infiltrating Soviet territory to gather information, Chinese intelligence services sent their agents under the guise of Chinese and Korean defectors. There were thousands of them, and all of them had to be thoroughly vetted.

Defectors were filtered out. Criminals and adventurers, as well as agents of the PRC MSS, were immediately disposed of by handing them over to the Chinese side. If they crossed over for political reasons, they were not handed over to the Chinese, they were interviewed for recruitment, and after appropriate training, they were illegally sent back.

Those who were filtered, but not suitable for further undercover work, were settled in isolated collective farms, mostly in the Magadan or Khabarovsk territories, with informants in their own environment. According to employees of the Russian security services, people were sent from China to the Union “to settle” and in a forced manner. Their task was to settle in a particular area, obtain citizenship and a Soviet passport, and wait for the “X” hour. Yuri Ufimtsev in his book Through the Bamboo Curtain. KGB in China, cites the story of a KGB officer who passed through more than a hundred Chinese defectors. “As for settling in. One day a captain of the Chinese MSS came over to us. He had some secret documents of interest with him. As we chatted with him, he told us literally the following:

– You have yet to face China. He will simply have nowhere to go. Or you will be taken “velvet” – by getting married, settling down. The Chinese are good family men.

We got the captain involved in our work. We had this conversation as far back as the year one thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine…”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the borders of the former empire opened wide, and the Chinese rushed to us in an avalanche. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the borders of the former empire burst open, and the Chinese rushed into Russia in an avalanche. By that time they all knew the Russian language, traditions, and Russian mentality, and were ready to “settle down” in Russia like no one else. This was the beginning of total Chinese espionage against Russia.

And despite the fact that Russia occupies a large territory, the Chinese have managed to cover all of it with their spying activities.

* * *

Today, China has the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, according to experts, about $610 billion. This allows China to keep its defense budget at a high level. According to U.S. estimates, China has bought eight diesel-electric submarines from Russia (by NATO classification, the Kilo type), is building its own Song type, which are effective off the coast, and also has several nuclear attack submarines. The missile forces (the Chinese call them the second artillery) used to supply 50-75 short-range missiles a year, but now they supply 100 each. China is the third largest ship builder in the world.

Such a scale of defense construction, massive arms purchases from Russia are successfully combined with military espionage, theft of military equipment and technical documentation. Despite the proclaimed strategic partnership between the two countries, the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) conducts extensive intelligence work against Russia. In addition to gaining unauthorized access to advanced high-tech Russian developments, the Chinese intelligence service invites developers and specialists in military technology for work. The Chinese MSS is particularly active in the Russian Far East. Dozens of spy cases are being conducted by counterintelligence officers against businessmen and officers of the Russian Army involved in ties with the Chinese secret services.

A member of the FSB recently said in an interview with the media:

– They’re getting out of hand here, they’re already spying openly, recruiting agents and stealing everything military! How? They just approach soldiers and officers and say they are ready to buy any blocks from airplanes, so just go and break them out. Then it all goes to China, where their specialists take it apart and see how the new equipment differs from the old. We catch them at it all the time…

* * *

Let’s return to “Operation Vanya. So, Captain Nikolaev contacted the FSB. The counterintelligence service decided to “develop” Major Artyukhov.

The FSB soon found out that he did not act alone. The established spy group of three was headed by Captain Igor Lukin. In accordance with the developed “legend,” Nikolaev confirmed his consent to participate in the spy business, asking for increased payment for the secret information provided. Subsequently, the counterintelligence officers worked on the connections of Captain Lukin and came out on his assistants. Outdoor surveillance showed that Lukin, having left the unit in his car, at the agreed place moved into the car of two merchants from Vladivostok – Beloshapkin and Popov. When they got out of the car, FSB officers managed to record a conversation in which the merchants admitted that they were transporting military equipment samples to China. The spy group carefully concealed their interests, so, for example, they called the missiles “fish” and the numbers “tons.

The established control over the telephone conversations of merchants with China revealed the scope of the spy business. “Fish” and “tons” constantly appeared in conversations with “Vanya”, “Alexei”, and “Valya”. These were the names the Chinese customers called themselves. It turned out that they were all representatives of either military enterprises or special services. Very often the orders refused by “Vanya” were accepted by “Alexey”, and vice versa. The amounts varied from $5,000 to $100,000.

In May 2002, “Vanya” asked merchants to bring the gas-turbine power plant GTDE-117-1 from the Su-27. The FSB operatives immediately determined that this particular engine was in Viktor Popov’s garage in Vladivostok. Alexander Beloshapkin and Viktor Popov left for China in June 2002 and sent the cargo by rail. Apart from the power unit in the wagon there was a SK-224-05 unit designed for launching Su-27 jet engines and three combat rounds with anti-tank guided missiles. But it was impossible to fulfill the order without the help of customs officials.

Then the two merchants started looking for “their” man there and found him at Grodekovo Customs. The customs officer agreed to let the goods through. But he soon noticed outside surveillance, at which point Beloshapkin reassured them that his son worked for the customs department and had connections everywhere, even with the FSB. If they had been under surveillance, his son would have been the first to know about it.

The power units from the Su-27s must not get into China in any way. It was necessary to detain the train by any means. And the FSB operatives set a fire on the locomotive at the very first crossing, and the train had to be returned to the station. The cargo was detained at the Sosnovaya Pad railway crossing, and the consignors Beloshapkin and Popov were informed by phone that the arrival of the train was delayed due to a locomotive fire. When Alexander Beloshapkin and Viktor Popov returned to Russia to investigate, they were immediately taken into custody.

Alexander Beloshapkin was sentenced to 11 years in a colony, and Captain Igor Lukin was sentenced to 10 years with deprivation of rank. Major Alexander Artyukhov was also demoted and sentenced to eight years of probation. The sixth person involved in the case, Victor Popov, did not survive the trial – in September 2002, after he was charged, he committed suicide in an investigative isolator. A total of seven people were brought to criminal responsibility – four of them were servicemen. A private ruling was issued against the Grodekovo customs officer who was directly involved in the whole affair.

Nothing ever made it to China, but the operatives continued to “develop” “Vanya. The FSB decided that he worked for the Chinese secret services and that he had to have agents in Russia. Operation “Vanya” soon developed further. Even in the course of the operational and investigative measures against Beloshapkin and Popov, it was established that they were not the only agents of “Vanya”. The FSB officers noticed that some of Vanya’s projects were implemented through Pavel Nosik, a Primorsky entrepreneur.

When summoned for interrogation in August 2002, Nosik did not deny his acquaintance with “Vanya. But, according to him, it turned out that “Vanya” was only a representative of the investment and trade company. However, in May 2002, “Vanya” asked him to bring some spare parts for tanks from Russia. But Nosik, according to him, sort of turned him down. There were a couple of other things that raised Nosik’s doubts about “Vanya’s” solely entrepreneurial activities. Once, at Chinese customs, a driver Nosik knew was detained while trying to smuggle erotic cassettes into the Celestial Empire. Erotic content is very strict in China, and the driver was at risk of big trouble.

Nosik turned to “Vanya,” who, fortunately, was not far from the scene of the accident, and he arrived at the customs office and had a short talk with its chief. After a couple of minutes the driver was released and apologized for the inconvenience caused. Nosik was also helped out by Vanya. Back in 2001, he had problems with an expired visa to leave China. Nosik called “Vanya,” and then, at his request, handed the phone to the Chinese border guards. Naturally, he did not understand the meaning of the conversation, but they asked him to pay a small fine and let him go back to Russia.

Nosik’s testimony did not raise any particular doubts, although it was obvious that his revelations were not easy for him. Nosik did not refuse to cooperate with the FSB, and in October he himself told about a very curious new meeting with “Vanya. The meeting was of a business nature: Nosik supplied “Vanya” with 20 tons of flax. However, after thanking the Russian businessman for his good work, “Vanya” unexpectedly offered him to deliver from Russia about 20 articles for the Su-27, and if possible, preferably the entire aircraft. It could even be decommissioned, and for a good price – $2.5 million.

One day “Vanya” suggested that Nosik meet with his director, who wanted to thank him for the flax he supplied. They met with the director in a separate office of the restaurant. Vanya’s immediate superior spoke practically no Russian, but Nosik understood one word in his speech without translation – the S-300 complex. However, “Vanya” did not translate this word for Nosik. In addition, the director was interested in the possibility of inviting specialists from tank repair and aircraft building plants to work in China, and also in the prospects of partial privatization of Saratov and Ufa defense industry enterprises. One more “essential detail” – the director practically did not drink, but pretended to be drunk. In the end, he even invited Nosik to his home to continue the fun with the “girls. Nosik politely declined.

Nosik’s next landmark meeting with the same partners in China took place in January. This time Nosik came to the Celestial Empire to buy a batch of woodworking machines. “Vanya” helped the Russian partner get a room in an expensive hotel and paid for his lodging himself. He and Nosik met twice a day for lunch and dinner, which lasted two to two and a half hours. Vanya again asked Nosik to get some military information and even promised to secure their transfer with a gift of a laptop with special encryption software.

But the Russian special services soon detained Nosik on suspicion of “double-dealing. In the course of the investigation, the FSB quickly found his old acquaintance Victor Smal, a serviceman living in the village of Romanovka. They did not seem to have any common interests, but Nosik contacted him regularly as soon as he returned from China. After another such return, Smal unexpectedly approached his colleague Zakharov with a request to give him some official documents on military aviation. Zakharov promised to think about it and immediately reported the contents of his unexpected conversation to the authorities.

After that, it became clear that Nosik was playing a double game, and in favor of the PRC security services. In order to catch him red-handed, FSB operatives developed a whole cycle of operational measures. They urgently produced the Air Defense Officer’s Handbook as a “secret” document.

At the end of March 2003, Smal photographed this “Handbook” in Zakharov’s apartment. For only $100. He photographed it with an Olympus digital camera, given to him by Nosik. Nosik himself had no idea about the FSB activities. He said that he sold the laptop and the camera to an unknown person in Nakhodka, not realizing that the operatives already knew where the camera was and what was being photographed with it.

Smal brought photocopies of the “Air Defense Officer’s Handbook” to Nosik on the day of the latter’s regular departure for China. However, the 513 graphic files never made it past customs. In the evening, Nosik was detained red-handed while passing customs and border control.

In principle, there was an option of allowing him to leave with the “Reference” to China and continue the operational game with “Vanya. But there was a high probability that Nosik was also carrying other materials, the origin of which the operatives did not know. In the end, incidentally, this assumption was confirmed. In the electronic archives of yet another batch of spies, they found about 10,000 graphic files marked “DSP” or “Secret. Nosik received this information from other servicemen – Krohmal and Sarkisian.

These cases of Chinese espionage are not the only ones. Even when the “Vanya” operation was underway in late April 2001, former Air Force captain Alexei Vetrov was detained when attempting to cross the border with secret documents on the armament of the Su-27. Later, several more Russian citizens were detained in the Far East (Khabarovsk, in particular) while attempting to smuggle secret documents and accessories for military aviation and the Navy to China. And again it will turn out that the PRC intelligence services are particularly interested in components of the Su-27, which Russia supplies to China! In Spring 2003 in Vladivostok an attempt of the Chinese to seize and export the blueprints of the very same Su-27 was foiled. And an investigation also revealed that the PRC special services were very interested in the tank repair, tank and aircraft building plants and in the possibility of privatization of those plants by China!

But why would the Chinese steal what they seem to be receiving officially? Experts believe that, first of all, the Chinese military doubt that the components supplied from Russia are identical to those used in the actual Russian military aviation. PLA experts are convinced that Russia leaves the best parts for itself and gives them second-rate ones. Second, Chinese intelligence steals documentation, trying to make official purchases cheaper. And to set up their own production of stolen goods. In Khabarovsk, for example, a Chinese man was taken off a train who was carrying secret documents that would have allowed him to set up production of military equipment hundreds of times cheaper than official purchases. There have also been curiosities: a Chinese man was caught at the Progress plant in Primorye who wanted documentation on the unique Moskit cruise missiles. It turned out that they were part of the armament of two destroyers that Russia built for China. Sometimes China’s intelligence services simply conduct an all-out search for everything related to military technology, buying up absolutely everything without looking.

According to the FSB, since 2001, Chinese secret services have intensified their activities in military units of Primorye Territory. The statistics is as follows: in 2002 counterintelligence agents caught a Chinese agent in Khabarovsk when he was trying to take out secret blueprints from the aircraft factory that manufactured the Su attack aircraft. A year later the Federal Security Service of Russia in Primorye conducted a large-scale operation on detention of a group of military pilots engaged in illegal sale of spare parts for military equipment to the Chinese. The operation involved 11 groups of counterintelligence agents, who simultaneously searched more than 10 addresses. The results of the operation were reported by Nikolai Patrushev to the president.

In 2003, FSB officers in Primorsky Krai prevented the export of precious metals and rare-earth elements, which were contained in the stuffing of the guidance system units, as well as in other onboard and ground equipment, electronic circuits, etc. The Chinese bought this equipment in bulk and tried to export it to the PRC. In order to prevent this transaction, the FSB officers were introduced into the military unit under the guise of retraining officers and seconded civilian specialists.

* * *

In 1991 Rosvooruzhenie sold 46 Su-27 fighters to China. Russia hoped to make good money on the supply of spare parts for these unique aircraft. However, those calculations did not come to fruition because the Chinese special services stepped in. They thought about it and decided: why buy when you can steal, and organized large-scale operations to smuggle Su-27 parts from Russia.

Over the past ten years, we have not only sold fighter jets to China. The PRC has also bought submarines, missiles, and ships from us. Keeping all this equipment in combat condition requires a lot of spare parts. It is very expensive to buy them officially. That is why there is an illegal market for the sale of military equipment parts. The Chinese are particularly interested in the latest aviation equipment: our ultramodern Ka-50 and Ka-52 helicopters and components for the latest generations of nuclear submarines.

Moreover, the Russian special services have an assumption that those pieces of military equipment that we have not sold to China, they are trying to recreate at their enterprises. This can only explain the significant expansion of the list of equipment and spare parts, as well as drawings that Chinese special services are trying to smuggle back to their homeland.

Most likely, all of this is needed for the independent production of modern Russian military equipment at Chinese defense enterprises. That is why Chinese businessmen scour Russian defense enterprises and buy spare parts and blueprints for components of defense equipment. According to FSB officers, an entire floor of a hostel of one of the Russian defense plants was crowded with Chinese with a distinctly military bearing, speaking excellent Russian and strenuously pretending that they do not understand anything. Officially, they were listed as seconded specialists “monitoring the fulfillment of the contract. No one doubted that they were all officers of the Chinese military intelligence service (although, apparently, there were also citizens of the MGB). And, most likely, in their spare time from their main work they were engaged in agent approaches, hunting for blueprints and blocks.

PRC intelligence had its own specifics in gathering secret information, related to information extraction. Wandering around our defense plants, they would seek out locksmiths and offer to sell them a secret part for a bottle or a case of vodka. If we believe the journalist and orientalist K.G. Preobrazhensky, very often this unpretentious trick worked.

If caught red-handed, Chinese intelligence officers were released without publicity. A billion-dollar contract is more expensive than national security. In March 2001, at Khabarovsk airport, the FSB arrested a citizen of China with secret blueprints for a nuclear submarine. Then suddenly the man was released with apologies, and the press was told that the exported materials were not secret.

The Chinese themselves do not risk sending stolen secret materials across the border, but mostly force Russian businessmen recruited earlier to do so.

According to Russian intelligence agencies, the Chinese MGB uses the following tactics. It can be divided into two stages. Initially, active members of China’s secret services come to Russia disguised as merchants, aimed at finding partners who do not care what they trade in. The recruited Russian merchants were given large sums of money and asked to search for and export to China, for example, rare-earth metals, which are known to be mainly used in space and defense technologies. If the contracts were executed accurately and on time, interest in such people increased. Their efforts were generously rewarded, and the tasks became more difficult.

From these, groups were then formed to “trade” in military products by direction: Navy, Ground Forces, and Aviation. Of course, the FSB interfered in this business, and after a number of successful operations, the neighbors’ tactics changed.

One such Russian merchant recently confessed to the FSB. He said that the Chinese had set up a special firm, Asia, in the city of Harbin, where a certain Chinese citizen, Liu Deijun, worked. He was the direct customer for the delivery of military goods from Russia. Employees of the neighboring country’s customs service and border guards are also directly involved in the well-organized and well-established technology of smuggling spare parts and equipment.

During the investigation, FSB officers found out that one of the Ussuri businessmen was selling scrap metal, which he legally took from the nuclear submarine repair plant Zvezda. One day his partner offered to sell not just scrap metal, but military hardware. That is, to smuggle the products out of the plant’s territory, of course, not without the help of the “Zvezda” executives interested in this, and then smuggle them to China. The “entrepreneurs” first offered the Chinese two pumps and a converter from a nuclear submarine of the “Kalmar” type.

Soon a deal was struck for $90,000. A month later, a businessman, through a shell company, took nuclear submarine units and documentation to China under the guise of scrap metal. The Russian businessman was paid $50,000 for this service. However, the Chinese soon refused to buy equipment from old nuclear submarines which were being scrapped and offered to deliver them units from brand new submarines. But the businessman was afraid that he had gone too far, and confessed to the FSB.

In another case, the Chinese ordered a Russian trader to procure and transport a decommissioned submarine across the border for rebuilding it in China. Of course, by this they did not mean a huge submarine with a nuclear engine, but a small two-seater submarine for subversive purposes that could be transported across the border in a heavy truck. But, much to the dismay of the Chinese side, this task turned out to be unfulfilled.

A Chinese citizen was recently sentenced to ten years for espionage in the Irkutsk region. According to the FSB, the convict was a career intelligence officer. For several years, the Chinese man lived in the Irkutsk region, where he was engaged in business. “However, at the same time he was collecting information about Russian missile systems and troops.”

After a series of revealing spy scandals, the Chinese are changing tactics. Today they have stopped traveling to Russia and have begun to recruit unscrupulous Russian merchants on their territory. Moreover, today they do not try to export blueprints and blocks of military products abroad. Why? It is better to take Russian defense specialists to China for 2-3 days – as if on a tour. For certain consultations our scientists would get from $100 to $500 there. The most valuable sources were offered to sign a secret contract for a longer collaboration.

An employee of a defense research institute related to high-precision weapons said that Chinese “scientists” who come to the institute on exchange directly make a “recruiting approach” to Russian scientists and offer to share information with nuclear scientists. More recently, Vladimir Shchurov, a professor at the Pacific Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was convicted. He passed secret information about Russian military technologies to China. He was sentenced to 2 years of probation and amnestied. But nevertheless, the Krasnoyarsk scientist Valentin Danilov, who had signed a contract with the All-China Precision Machinery Import-Export Company to build a research stand and develop software for it, could not escape a lengthy court investigation, which is still ongoing.

At the end of November 2005, S. Tverdokhlebov, deputy general director of TsNIIMASH-Export, and his assistant A. Rozhkin were arrested. They participated in the embezzlement of funds as part of an organized group led by Igor Reshetin, the company’s general director. S. Tverdokhlebov is accused of stealing almost 30 million rubles. I. Reshetin himself, in addition to being accused of stealing about 30 million rubles using fictitious companies registered on lost passports, is accused of espionage in favor of China. According to the investigation, I. Reshetin and his two accomplices – S. Tverdokhlebov and A. Rozhkin – embezzled 29 million rubles transferred by the Chinese side to fulfill the contract. The money in question was received by I. Reshetin from teams of 13 scientific institutions that cooperated with the company “TSNIIMASH-Export”. The result of the two-year investigation conducted by the Investigative Directorate of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation was the arrest of three persons involved in the case in their apartments on October 25, 2005.

Stealing weapons and ammunition in the Far East is on a steady stream. They steal everything they can get their hands on from military units and defense enterprises: blueprints of aircraft and submarine assemblies, various secret devices and assemblies of aircraft, missiles, etc.

For example, one day the Arsenyev City Department of the Federal Security Service for Primorsky Krai received information that a local resident, let’s call him Nikolaev, wanted to sell secret electronic control units from Su-27 airplanes. This businessman was engaged in entrepreneurial activities and had an extensive circle of acquaintances. It is clear that the Chekists had established covert surveillance over the businessman. Soon information was received that an intermediary had allegedly appeared who was willing to take on the sale of the electronic units for a certain percentage of the commission.

This scenario had been foreseen by the FSB officers, and they had already prepared the appropriate preventive actions, the intermediary, having “duped” Nikolaev, fled. Then the operatives decided to conduct an appropriate conversation with Nikolaev. The meeting was arranged at the building of the Arsenyevsky Main Directorate of Internal Affairs. Nikolaev was visibly nervous, clearly guessing at the purpose of the upcoming conversation. He did not try to deny it. All the possible consequences of his actions were explained to him and he was offered to return the blocks. Nikolaev agreed. The only thing he refused to do was to give up the supplier of the block.

But Nikolaev did not take into account one thing: these electronic control units are strictly accounted for and it was not very difficult to determine where they were stolen from. Their last location was a military unit in Khabarovsk Krai.

China is actively interested in oil. The ambitions of Chinese oilmen showed themselves in all their glory during the Slavneft auction two years ago, when the Chinese state company SKRS competed with structures close to Sibneft in an attempt to gain control over the Russian company. The Chinese oil company CNPC is negotiating to buy the Canadian company PetroKazakhstan, which operates in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea.

* * *

Recently, the activities of the Chinese secret services in Russia have been linked to attempts to discredit the Falun Gong movement in Russia. Through official and unofficial channels, through the media, and by all means, the Chinese authorities are trying to impose false information about Falun Gong on public opinion. In doing so, they use all kinds of methods, including illegal ones: direct and indirect pressure on local authorities, organizations and simply individuals, creating obstacles to the legal activities and performances of Russian citizens who practice Falun Gong.

“Falun Gong is an organization founded by Li Hongzhi, a Chinese resident in the United States. In the beginning it (the organization) enticed people to practice Qigong breathing exercises, which have been practiced in China for several thousand years. Li Hongzhi, using terms and techniques borrowed from qigong, created the pseudo-theory of the “great law of Falun”. He argues much about “truth, goodness, and patience,” declares that he knows the “radical great law of the cosmos,” heralds the “explosion of the globe,” and the “coming end of the world.” Li Hongzhi declared that only he could save humanity. The purpose of this set of mysticism and “philosophy” is quite clear: to create confusion in people’s minds, and then to spiritually manipulate his followers to become his obedient instruments.

Since 1996, Falun Gong followers have organized several hundred illegal attacks on educational institutions, press and publishing houses, and government agencies. Disregarding the law, Falun Gong does not stop at blackmail to avoid criticism. Li Hongzhi organizes large-scale illegal gatherings and actions, disrupting public order and interfering with the work of government institutions. Consider the rally of more than 10,000 of his supporters around the Zhongnanhai Government Complex in Beijing in 1999 that he instigated. That action was a vivid manifestation of his political ambitions.

When the Chinese government decisively and firmly dispersed the illegal siege of the Zhongnanhai complex, not only did the core of the organization not curtail its activities, but on the contrary, it intensified preparations for new actions.

Li Hongzhi has created his own radio station, television, has entered the Internet, publishes literature, and is actively published in the foreign media. His activities have received massive support and economic assistance from a number of countries and organizations.

Representatives of the Chinese security services openly visit Falun Gong training centers in order to identify Chinese citizens in order to extradite them back to China and subject them to cruel and illegal punishments there. This is also confirmed by attempts by Chinese agents, under the guise of supposedly “old Chinese students,” to make contact with Russian Falun Gong practitioners. The purpose of such contacts is to gather information about Falun Gong in Russia, to infiltrate, to control the movement from within, and to gather compromising information about it, sometimes using the most impure methods.

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Recall the words of the Chinese renegade captain that Russia can be taken “velvet”-by marrying and settling. Today Russia is threatened by “demographic expansion. The process of “Chineseization” of the Russian Far East is in full swing, if not completed. According to Lieutenant General A. Golbach, commander of the Far Eastern Frontier Sector: “The PRC has developed a state program for settling in the Far East; Chinese government services not only issue visas to its citizens, but also help them legalize themselves in Russia, inform them of addresses where they can settle in Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and Blagoveshensk, and give them instructions on how to fit into Russian life more quickly.”

Analysts at the Russian Center for Strategic Development conclude that “the large-scale penetration of Chinese immigrants into the Russian Far East has become an acute political, socio-economic and international legal problem,” because “according to several local regional newspapers, the number of Chinese living there on the border with China in the southern regions of Primorsky Krai (Grodekovsky and Frontier Districts) reaches 10-15 thousand people. Hence the conclusion: “Chinese penetration into Russian territory significantly affects Russia’s national and state interests in this region”, as it leads to “the process of building a Chinese diaspora” on territories contested by Russia (China total, recall, claims 1.5 million square kilometers of Russian land). It is not without reason that the Minister of Construction of the Russian Federation compared the situation to an occupation.

An urgent geostrategic problem for China is the growing influence of U.S. agents in Russia, because the PRC risks finding itself in an unfriendly environment at a time when the Chinese leadership is faced with the strategic tasks of eliminating the American presence in the Asian region in full swing. The Chinese leaders, who plan to expand their control over Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, are interested in having a strong leader in Russia who can resist American expansion. At the same time, China is not interested in restoring Russia’s military and strategic potential, as this could create difficulties in the further implementation of China’s global plans.

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In addition to high-precision weapons, Chinese intelligence agencies are also interested in biological weapons. American, British and Australian intelligence agencies are conducting an international investigation into the mysterious deaths of ten scientists, citizens of different countries, who were involved in biological weapons projects.

According to the London weekly newspaper Sunday Express, there were five microbiologists on the plane of the Siberian Airlines that took off from Israel and crashed over the Black Sea in October 2003. According to journalists of the Sunday Express, “an Israeli group of scientists were engaged in secret projects in the field of super-powerful biological weapons. The work of this group was so secret that its projects and developments were not to be published even in scientific publications, and the information about what they have managed to do, the scientists took with them to the grave.” The weekly adds that part of the research was aimed at creating a vaccine that could protect the population and the army from a biological attack.

The reason for the crash of the plane was given as the mistaken hit of a Ukrainian missile. But there is another version of the plane crash and the death of scientists. This version emerged after the death of the Russian scientist Vladimir Peschanik, who had moved to Britain and was developing antibodies against biological weapons. Intelligence agencies refused to accept the official explanation of Peschanik’s death, according to which he died of a stroke in November 2001.

The Sunday Express weekly claims that the Chinese secret services were responsible for the elimination of the scientists, including Vladimir Peschanik, who failed to persuade the biologists to “share” their secret research with the PRC. The Sunday Express quotes American poison specialist Dr. Leonard Horowitz as saying that “there are several viruses that can cause strokes without leaving any signs.

According to the Sunday Express, U.S. news agencies are investigating the death in December 2001 of Dr. Don Willey, a biologist who had a working relationship with Sandman. Dr. Willey was found dead in his car; the cause of death was stated to be suicide.

The Americans are also investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths of two biologists who were killed recently – Dr. Robert Schwartz and Dr. Benito Ko. And in Australia, they are investigating the cause of death of Dr. Seth Van Nagweijn, a scientist who was involved in the development of a new black blister virus.

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In December 2004, Nikolai Patrushev openly said that intelligence services of the United States, China and North Korea were the most active in Russia. The Chinese intelligence activities took second place after those of the United States.

This text is an introductory excerpt.Continued on LitRes