09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread

Lethe

Captain
We have one "certain" measure of the quality of Chinese nuclear subs: the fact that China just built a large plant to produce them at a higher rate means that the authorities consider the quality they now achieve is near or at World level.

Quoted for emphasis.

New facility means PLAN is gearing up to produce nuclear submarines at a higher rate. Higher rate production means PLAN must be reasonably satisfied with the boats that will be produced, which in turn suggests that they will be reasonably competitive, like 054A and 052C/D before them.
 
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vesicles

Colonel
@vesicles, yours is a nice write up and has some merit, but I don't agree Internet gossip is on balance more believable, even though it has provided many gems over the years. I appreciate your thoughts and reasoning, but we have to agree to disagree.

I know your dislike of censored government voices. No matter how democratic a government can be, its intelligence agencies are always always heavily heavily censored. Do you agree with me? On the other hand, Internet gossip is independent of government, thus closer to free press... don't you agree?

I think Trump is also of same opinion. He uses internet gossip (Twitter) as his own press, yes?
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Must be something big going on Navy Chief visited the nuclear sub reactor test facility

The Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Navy and the CEO of the CSIC Group visit a test site for the new nuclear submarine reactor.

DAOpoEwW0AAYuzH.jpg
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
I know your dislike of censored government voices. No matter how democratic a government can be, its intelligence agencies are always always heavily heavily censored. Do you agree with me? On the other hand, Internet gossip is independent of government, thus closer to free press... don't you agree?

I think Trump is also of same opinion. He uses internet gossip (Twitter) as his own press, yes?
And he get right ofc can be only less interesting especialy for the passionates, communist censorship !!!
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
HUMINT, IMINT, SIGINT, GEOINT, MASINT, are just some of the methods, and there are probably more. As for your claim US intelligence agencies are no better than rumors on public forums, that's a counterintuitive claim. Can you explain why you believe that? And do you think it's peculiar to US intelligence agencies or it's the case with all agencies, including the Communist Party intel services?

What HUMINT?



Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations
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MAY 20, 2017

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spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved

But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

Still others were put in jail. All told, the Chinese killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 of the C.I.A.’s sources in
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, according to two former senior American officials, effectively unraveling a network that had taken years to build
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Assessing the fallout from an exposed spy operation can be difficult, but the episode was considered particularly damaging. The number of American assets lost in China, officials said, rivaled those lost in the Soviet Union and Russia during the betrayals of both Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, formerly of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., who divulged intelligence operations to Moscow for years.

The previously unreported episode shows how successful the Chinese were in disrupting American spying efforts and stealing secrets years before a
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gave Beijing access to thousands of government personnel records, including intelligence contractors. The C.I.A. considers spying in China one of its top priorities, but the country’s extensive security apparatus makes it exceptionally hard for Western spy services to develop sources there.

At a time when the C.I.A. is trying to figure out how some of its most sensitive documents were
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two months ago by WikiLeaks, and the F.B.I. investigates possible ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russia, the unsettled nature of the China investigation demonstrates the difficulty of conducting counterespionage investigations into sophisticated spy services like those in Russia and China.The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. both declined to comment.

Details about the investigation have been tightly held. Ten current and former American officials described the investigation on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing the information.Investigators still disagree how it happened, but the unsettled nature of the China investigation demonstrates the difficulty of conducting counterespionage investigations into sophisticated spy services. CreditCarolyn Kaster/Associated Press..

The first signs of trouble emerged in 2010. At the time, the quality of the C.I.A.’s information about the inner workings of the Chinese government was the best it had been for years, the result of recruiting sources deep inside the bureaucracy in Beijing, four former officials said. Some were Chinese nationals who the C.I.A. believed had become disillusioned with the Chinese government’s corruption.

But by the end of the year, the flow of information began to dry up. By early 2011, senior agency officers realized they had a problem: Assets in China, one of their most precious resources, were disappearing.

The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. opened a joint investigation run by top counterintelligence officials at both agencies. Working out of a secret office in Northern Virginia, they began analyzing every operation being run in Beijing. One former senior American official said the investigation had been code-named Honey Badger.

As more and more sources vanished, the operation took on increased urgency. Nearly every employee at the American Embassy was scrutinized, no matter how high ranking. Some investigators believed the Chinese had cracked the encrypted method that the C.I.A. used to communicate with its assets. Others suspected a traitor in the C.I.A., a theory that agency officials were at first reluctant to embrace — and that some in both agencies still do not believe.

Their debates were punctuated with macabre phone calls — “We lost another one” — and urgent questions from the Obama administration wondering why intelligence about the Chinese had slowed.

The mole hunt eventually zeroed in on a former agency operative who had worked in the C.I.A.’s division overseeing China, believing he was most likely responsible for the crippling disclosures. But efforts to gather enough evidence to arrest him failed, and he is now living in another Asian country, current and former officials said.

There was good reason to suspect an insider, some former officials say. Around that time, Chinese spies compromised National Security Agency surveillance in Taiwan — an island Beijing claims is part of China — by infiltrating Taiwanese intelligence, an American partner, according to two former officials. And the C.I.A. had discovered Chinese operatives in the
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, according to officials and court documents.

But the C.I.A.’s top spy hunter, Mark Kelton, resisted the mole theory, at least initially, former officials say. Mr. Kelton had been close friends with
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, a C.I.A. officer who in the 1990s was wrongly suspected by the F.B.I. of being a Russian spy. The real traitor, it turned out, was Mr. Hanssen. Mr. Kelton often mentioned Mr. Kelley’s mistreatment in meetings during the China episode, former colleagues say, and said he would not accuse someone without ironclad evidence.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
And you are sure they got everyone, how?

We will never know .. my gut feeling is ... there are still some informants in China (the same way in the US paid by China) .. China.US is way too big and always somebody prepared to sell their own country for $$

I think we need to differentiate between informant and an agent .... in this case all that been captured were informants
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
And you are sure they got everyone, how?
LOL What kind of question is that? Nobody claims to have gotten every single one. There will always be American spies in China and Chinese spies in the US. Trying to catch every one is like trying to hand-kill a flea infestation in your house. But 20's a job well-done by ZhongNanHai, no way to take away from that. Your comment sounds... salty LOL

BTW, I don't know how this is in the submarine thread. It's already being discussed in the What The Heck thread and if any mods see this, I recommend these posts be moved there.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
We will never know .. my gut feeling is ... there are still some informants in China (the same way in the US paid by China) .. China.US is way too big and always somebody prepared to sell their own country for $$

I think we need to differentiate between informant and an agent .... in this case all that been captured were informants

Probably the wrong thread for this, but western agents are usually western nationals or even embassy officials with diplomatic ammunity, so it would be quite an escalation to kill them.

Doing so would also 'cross a line' and invite similar treatment of Chinese agents in the west.

Notice how there were no stories of Chinese spies killed in the US or other western countries.

Both sides show restraint when dealing with each other's spies caught domestically because firstly they can, and secondly to safeguard their own people when they get caught themselves. Not every spy will get caught, but it is pretty much inevitable that one day someone will.

The US excel at SIGINT, but HUMINT has always been the Chinese domain.

That's not to say China can't do SIGINT or the US is bad at HUMINT, it's just that traditionally both have the most experience, success and built up the most capabilities using their own respective preferred methods on intelligence gathering.
 
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