Brother of Ling Jihua Reveals China's nuclear launch code and top secrets to US

Ultra said:

The problem with nuclear Op-Plans and command and control systems being revealed to your adversary is that - now they know where to look for weaknesses - and it is extremely hard to change the whole system and starting from scratch. Every step in the procedures are now compromised because of the structural weaknesses that exist in every kill chain that could be exploited. Every component inside every step is also compromised. So now the adversary will be free to target every single component to stop the kill chain. Eg. Do PLA Rocket Force communicate using VHF or UHF? Knowing what type allows them to jam it maybe even just temporarily. But even stopping the kill chain just temporary is catastrophic. Because during a nuclear exchange - the one that launch late has their chance of survival drastically diminished - the adversary may even wipe them out before they can even launch.

Or do the Chinese president carry a nuclear football?? What's the security composition on this? Can it be compromise, or stolen, or ambushed? Now that secret is out it makes the adversary easier to figure out strategies to compromise it.

Or who do you kill to stop the chinese leadership?? Who can you threaten to stop the kill chain? Who can you BRIBE to stop the kill chain? Now there are just too many possibilities.

Another interesting thing that came out of this is that - the MSS apparently has multiple kill-teams in US looking for this guy. The NSA and FBI apparently got the wind of it and put him in a secure facility. Maybe even the entire Chinese NOC list is also compromised. Who knows!

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Really? Do you have privileged information on what was compromised that was not detailed in the article? How would you know what would or wouldn't be easy to change?

Multiple kill teams in the US? You believe that just because a western article speculates that it may be the case?

Real life isn't a Hollywood movie, where the fate of Everything(tm) rests on a single plot device.

Ultra said:

The problem is the culture itself. No other civilization suffer as many catastrophic betrayals as the Chinese. Too many dynasties collapsed as result of traitors. The Chinese culture is just too selfish. Too "family" oriented. Too many chinese are only looking out for themselves and their own family, screw over anyone else and even their own country as long as they can benefit or profit from it. There is very little culture of Altruism in Chinese culture - most chinese regard people who are selfless as idiots.

And that is why China will always fail. The old saying goes - "Every chinese is a dragon, but China as a whole is a worm. Every Japanese is a worm, but Japan as a whole is a dragon."

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So in order for China to change for the betterment of themselves is to go by your idea of a strong civilization? This has always been a weak argument and excuses for others in forcing China to get rid of their competent Communist party system that brought up 700 million people out of poverty and another hundred million or so into middle class status. I find it people who are jealous or intolerable of China not following the trend or norm of today's so called modern society like democracy (whether it's truly existed or not is another debate) always looks to China's 5,000 years history as a poor example.

Ultra said:

The problem is the culture itself. No other civilization suffer as many catastrophic betrayals as the Chinese. Too many dynasties collapsed as result of traitors. The Chinese culture is just too selfish. Too "family" oriented. Too many chinese are only looking out for themselves and their own family, screw over anyone else and even their own country as long as they can benefit or profit from it. There is very little culture of Altruism in Chinese culture - most chinese regard people who are selfless as idiots.

And that is why China will always fail. The old saying goes - "Every chinese is a dragon, but China as a whole is a worm. Every Japanese is a worm, but Japan as a whole is a dragon."

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Obviously your understanding of Chinese history is restricted to romance novels.

What's wrong with looking out for your own family? Do you know what else is fundamentally based on self-interest? Yeah, Capitalism.

There's just as much altruism in Chinese culture as there is in Western culture, or Indian culture, or African culture, or whatever. The only difference is in the eye of the beholder. Choose to focus on the selfish aspects of a culture or choose to focus on the altruistic aspects.

Ultra said:

The problem with nuclear Op-Plans and command and control systems being revealed to your adversary is that - now they know where to look for weaknesses - and it is extremely hard to change the whole system and starting from scratch. Every step in the procedures are now compromised because of the structural weaknesses that exist in every kill chain that could be exploited. Every component inside every step is also compromised. So now the adversary will be free to target every single component to stop the kill chain. Eg. Do PLA Rocket Force communicate using VHF or UHF? Knowing what type allows them to jam it maybe even just temporarily. But even stopping the kill chain just temporary is catastrophic. Because during a nuclear exchange - the one that launch late has their chance of survival drastically diminished - the adversary may even wipe them out before they can even launch.

Or do the Chinese president carry a nuclear football?? What's the security composition on this? Can it be compromise, or stolen, or ambushed? Now that secret is out it makes the adversary easier to figure out strategies to compromise it.

Or who do you kill to stop the chinese leadership?? Who can you threaten to stop the kill chain? Who can you BRIBE to stop the kill chain? Now there are just too many possibilities.

Another interesting thing that came out of this is that - the MSS apparently has multiple kill-teams in US looking for this guy. The NSA and FBI apparently got the wind of it and put him in a secure facility. Maybe even the entire Chinese NOC list is also compromised. Who knows!

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I think you're blowing this way out of proportion. Your first paragraph about the kill chain is very vague; I understand how they would be a huge threat if the information was up-to-date and the PLA didn't know that the US had this information but it's a completely different scenario if you get 2012 information in 2016 AND the Chinese government chose to arrest this guy, meaning they chose the time that this information is revealed to the US. In my opinion, that tells me that they made preparations for information to be declassified. Ling stopped having access to classified documents since 2012 so they didn't arrest him due to urgency of damage control; they arrested him because they decided that now's the time to yank him from his comfortable life. 3 years is enough time for the PLA to change just about anything, including who's in charge of what.

If not, tell me specifically what part of a communications or nuclear kill chain could not be changed given they know the the original plan is compromised. In other words, under what circumstance would the PLA have to follow the old plan anyway even though they know that the US has the intel on it? And keep in mind that this is not war time; this information continues to expire and become less and less relevant as the days pass and the PLA modernizes, especially with Xi's overhaul.

Also, because WanCheng had already provided all the information to the FBI, he is no longer a threat; I highly doubt they would have several teams hunting for him now, when his protection is the highest. They will probably wait 5-10 years and send someone to go check if he's ripe yet. The US has no interest expending whole teams of agents to protect him for multiple years around the clock AFTER he's expended his usefulness. After a while, they'll just tell him that he's got a new name, new credentials, new city, get in touch the the local police, and good luck. That's when they'll find him dead in his bedroom.

GreenestGDP said:

Fantastic and Courageous post brother !!!

I wonder instead of own--little--family--oriented ... ...when can 90% of Chinese be "Society Oriented" by putting Society--Benefits way above Self--Benefits ??

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I think that's called Fascism, bruh LOL. This is the attitude of China during Mao's reign, and also North Korea's current attitude. The fact is, when one is concerned about helping society instead of oneself, it's just incredibly hard to muster anything close to 100% because you feel like you've got many brothers to pick up the slack and that it's such a large and far goal, it's not all on your shoulders. It's a fault in human nature; it's why a true communist utopia is currently unattainable. China's secret to rising and becoming powerful was allowing greed to take over nationalism; people gave 110% and more because they knew that every extra percent was an extra piece of fruit in their own pockets. And when the truly powerful look back at all the wealth they've built, and material possessions become mundane, what do they find lacking? Pride! And then they contribute massively to their nation from the incredibly powerful platforms they've built by their greed. Without that greed, they would never have struggled and endured to become as educated and powerful as they are, and as capable of making a difference. This is how China grows (especially in technology), by being self-oriented first, then society-oriented only when the former has bore fruit. The side-effect is that those who never become anything worth mentioning (the vast majority) are perpetually stuck putting themselves first and looking like greedy little gremlins. And there are those who were consumed by their greed and enslaved by it, who cannot wake up to the fact that pride is a luxury richer than any material good. Fortunately, China's population is large enough such that just the fraction of people who had made it and realized that as long as China is weak, they will be weak, are enough to propel the nation as fast as it's developing now, in all fields.

Also, I'm fairly certain that this case had nothing to do with selling the country out for familial gains; that's what it would be if they secretly left China and sold this information to the CIA without China knowing. This case is of an idiot who thought he could protect himself from his own corrupt behavior by threatening an entire country. He never intended those documents to be given to the US; he intended to keep them secret and be immune from retribution from his crimes. His brother is the fool who didn't do a little finger math to figure out that following through with the threat benefits no one but seals his own fate.

GreenestGDP said:

Have Xi Jin Ping team mentioned the above to Obama, and ask Obama to handover the guilty hackers to China ??

The US will say ... ... what hackers ?
There is no NSA hacker in US.

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When the Chinese Hacked the Office of Personnel Management the Press made a stink about it but do you know what the Intelligence agencies said?
"Good for them. Congratulations,"
Intelligence work has rules, like Rules of War they do not always make logical sense to the outside world but they have rules. The biggest Rule of the game is Spy vs Spy is the game. So hacking agencies and offices is fair game. The Politburo offices are fair game, So is the FBI and CIA and NSA and FSB, Pentagon and MI6 And heck even The Clinton E-mail server.
the difference is and what Ticks governments off is when the hacking is of outside parties with no real relationship to the government. The Washington post is not a Government agency, Private corporations are not government agencies, hacking of corporations for industrial secrets comes under a different set of laws and rules. Industrial espionage is frowned on.

White Spy always vs Black Spy and that's fine but if they start attacking the civies then it's crossing a line.

Now then.
This story was broken in Australian media far earlier Infact I heard a Radio interview on the subject of this very defector back in late december.

You have to wonder why would they make this information public? Because it carries little value or this is just is lying to get protection from the US? Surely nothing that can't be changed. Remember that Chinese woman claiming persecution who was seeking protection from the US and then the US later arrested her for spying for China? The details from that wasn't revealed much. You better believe the US is paranoid over double agents.

AssassinsMace said:

You better believe the US is paranoid over double agents.

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It's not paranoia if it's a real possibility, In the second world war a Critical win for the Allies was that the English turned just about the entire German Spy network in England. If you can control what your opponent knows about you, You Win. Every Intelligence agency in the world wants to plant "Star" Agents in the US Intelligence networks.

AssassinsMace said:

You have to wonder why would they make this information public? Because it carries little value or this is just is lying to get protection from the US?

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Well, this was a tremendous success of US intelligence. Getting informations from the top of any government, let alone such an important world politics player as PRC, is always something to be proud of for special services. So it was released now (or a month earlier but it didn't get too much attention) to make public appeal that they're working. And they do their job great.
We don't know what was in those documents and Chinese side itself probably doesn't know the full extent of it. It's not wikileaks. We only know more or less of what they informed the press (without too much details also). But we know that many top secret documents were given to Americans. We know that Chinese really didn't want this to happen. We know that US had already anlyzed all of it and put the informations into their working areas. I bet many people's lives were put on the edge of the knife in this situation.
Mr Ling and his family will be a treated as traitors to their nation for decades. They will have a poor life for maybe two or three generations for that (those members who were left in PRC). Mr Ling will have a luxurious life for the end of his days under a strong US secret services protection. But he deserved that looking from US side and it probably was worth every penny. PRC will of course amend and improve in whatever aspect they can but it was surely terrible blow for them. And Mr Ling's case will be surely brouth up in many works for decades the same way as the cold war times spy stories are brought up today.

Janiz said:

We don't know what was in those documents and Chinese side itself probably doesn't know the full extent of it. It's not wikileaks. We only know more or less of what they informed the press (without too much details also).

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The person responsible for passing those secrets is in Chinese hands. He was going to be charged with graft only but that now his brother has betrayed his country, Ling Jihua is going to die a horrible death and hopefully his family with him, but not before telling his captors which secrets he passed out. China will know, if they don't already, which documents were compromised and they would have taken measures to mitigate the damage.