Xi Jinping doubts his troops’ ability to invade Taiwan, says former head of MI6

while by 2027 the Chinese military might actually have most of the equipment that they would need to undertake what would be a very difficult operation um they're still not sure that they've so to speak got the software right you the the you know the the Personnel the military training the ability to put together complex um um integrated um joint operations um Logistics all of these things I think they have reservations still about their own capabilities in this regard hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio with me K jaau and this time we're talking to a man with more than three decades experience in the British intelligence service MI6 Nigel iner was assistant chief and director of operations and intelligence when he retired in 2006 he's worked in China and written extensively about it and is the senior adviser for China and cyber security at the International Institute for strategic studies welcome to Front Line Nigel lster thank you so much for your time um the foreign a bill which passed in the US includes $2 billion dollar towards the foreign military financing program for Taiwan and other security Partners China says it's pushing the island into a dangerous situation is it and how might China respond well this is a situation that's been going on for some time and the two M two billion dollars you just referred to is simply the latest uh installment in uh a very substantial series of Aid packages that the United States has provided to Taiwan in recent years um when the United States recognized the People's Republic of China um they um cancelled a bilateral treaty with Taiwan that effectively required them to provide um security for Taiwan but they introduced to Taiwan another act which uh um committed the uh US government to providing Taiwan with um military equipment for defensive purposes um that was something that didn't cause obviously China was not happy with it but it didn't really caused too much problem I think the issue came into Stark relief uh around 207 2018 under the Trump Administration um which began to use Taiwan as a means of putting pressure on China and uh creating irritation the Trump Administration I think provided in total 18 billion dollars worth of military um assistance to Taiwan though it must be said that because of delivery lags a lot of that U uh equipment hasn't arrived yet um and the Biden Administration has similarly provided a range of military equipment to Taiwan so this 2 billion really is the the the most recent uh installment and in a sense I think we could say that China's objections to this latest TR are in some senses Pro former uh but what I think they will do is uh continue and perhaps intensify what they've already been doing for six or seven years now which is an intensification of what have been termed Gray Zone uh tactics um uh flights over the so-called median line the Midway line in the Taiwan straight uh that divides the two um uh entities uh a lot of military uh exercises Naval exercises um in the Taiwan Strait and around um Taiwan U cyber attacks um information operations cognition Warfare um all of these things have been going on and it's widely regarded though that China would be militarily ready to invade Taiwan by 2027 how far is it prepared to go in your opinion to exert its claim over the island that in a sense when they say that they are prepared um to um resort to military force to recover the island one has to take this seriously at the same time um it's quite clear that for now at least um the Chinese government is um more focused on uh peaceful uh reunification with Taiwan this is not straightforward because the uh party that has um governed Taiwan for the last eight years and will continue to do so um when the presidential Handover takes place um later this month um have um been regarded by China as promoting Taiwan Independence which for China has always been a red line um but in the recent elections in Taiwan that took place in January this year we saw a situation in which the Democratic People's Party the DPP the Govern party retained the presidency but lost control of the legislature um with a lot of people splitting their votes uh precisely in order to bring about this uh this outcome so um I think China will look at the political situation in in Taiwan and think well if the two main opposition parties had done what they set out to do and uh agreed on a Unity candidate which ultimately failed to materialize they would actually have won the election and at least one of these parties the Guang the kmt um is much more amable at least to talking to China about reunification whereas of course the DPP is not the other thing to pick up on what you said about China being militarily ready by 2027 to take Taiwan I think we need um to make a distinction here between capability and intent uh on the one hand and uh secondly uh to recognize that while by 2027 the Chinese military might actually have most of the equipment that they would need to undertake what would be a very difficult operation um they're still not sure that they've so to speak got the software right you know the the you the the Personnel the military training the ability to put together complex um um integrated um joint operations um Logistics all of these things I think they have reservations still about their own capabilities in this regard your assessment right now is that China does not have the intent it wants to achieve its Ambitions uh via diplomatic means without violence at this stage yes I mean you where CH when China looks at the whole Taiwan situation um their milit planning is based on a presumption that the United States will come to taiwan's Aid militarily in the event of conflict the United States posture has been one of strategic ambiguity um leaving it open whether or not they would uh undertake such activity but uh President Biden has um in the last couple of years said on four occasions that the US would come to taiwan's assistance in such an event so I think you've got to take that that serious ly and of course um China obviously is is concerned about the very real risks of getting into a shooting war with the United States um it's not necessarily the case uh that they would lose this war but equally it's not necessarily the case they would win it Wars these days tend not to have quick uh and decisive conclusions and what China could find itself getting into is a prolonged um conflict um of Uncertain outcome and I think uh C Jinping and any eventual successor if it doesn't happen under C Jinping would be very concerned about the impact of that on the ability of the Chinese Communist party to retain its hold on power not to mention what do you make then of reports have been in a British national newspaper this week that China is stockpiling gold it's raised suspicions that this is perhaps sanction proofing itself against the US um what do you read into that possible but I think you have to remember that the Chinese Communist Party um is a quintessentially paranoid organization and kind of needs to be this is you in their DNA so to speak and for a long time now cjan ping has been talking to the Chinese people about the need for struggle you know the the need to be aware of threats um you know he has identified over 20 areas um um which apply to National Security uh just recently China had uh its National Security day um when when they seek to um raise the awareness of of the population about um the threats that China faces C Jinping has also talked about a very much more um difficult and comp Lex um International situation um the um United States government is now threatening to sanction some Chinese Banks who are seen as having facilitated the sale of um to to Russia of um equipment that Russia is using to rebuild its military capabilities so I think that the the Chinese government is is looking to um um max maximize um its resilience uh in the face of threats and interruptions by the same token cin ping um is um making a big um thing of China um achieving self-sufficiency in food production energy and so on so I think this is just another manifestation of that General sense of paranoia the government of the United Kingdom views China as a strategic challenge not an adversary is that the right assessment um yeah I mean we're talking semantics here but essentially yes I mean I don't think that the United Kingdom sees itself U being drawn into a shooting war with China in in in the foreseeable future but the fact is that China does present a significant challenge to the UK from all um kinds of of of perspective uh not least because under CJ ping China is seeking to quite fundamentally change um the system of global governance from the one that we've been familiar with uh for something that's much more favorable to China's interests and would be seriously detrimental to those of the UK we're seeing an economic challenge we're seeing an Espionage um challenge um influence operations all of these things um are are creating problems but at the same time it's not realistic for a middle-sized power but like the United uh Kingdom to imagine that it can cut itself off from a China that is so globally integrated from an economic perspective I'm going to ask you a little bit about about the the spying Challenge in a moment but on that uh that uh subject of uh changing the global governance uh what is the threat posed in terms of China's technological prowess um it's not when you talk about a threat posed by Nation it's not just tanks and missiles but chips semiconductors drones for example that's a a view expounded by the US Commerce Secretary for example if technology is used as a weapon how is China using it well China aims to become uh the global leader and standard Setter for um the next Generations of Advanced Technologies and it wants to do that from two perspectives one is economic if China controls um the technology and sets the standards everyone else gets to pay China uh for for using their technology the other thing is that um if China does um achieve dominance uh in this area then that uh confers uh very substantial geopolitical benefits just as in the 19th century the United Kingdom derived a lot of benefit from being the country that wired the world for telegraphy um and the United States um achieved the same effect um in the the pre in the 20th century by uh being the global leader in information Communications technology so China sees itself um aspires to occupy the same role um in in in respect of um the next Generations of Advanced Technologies and of course that would um give China significant advantages in terms of the ability to um have visibility of and in some ways exercise control uh over what happens in in countries that are dependent upon uh China's Technologies how far down that road is it do you think it's very difficult to say um I mean I'm often asked um in in the technology race you to make a comparison between the United States and China um I think it's still fair to say that the United States is is still ahead in in most significant areas but um in some the Gap is uh closing quite rapidly I'm not sure that's a really useful way of thinking about the problem anymore because the simple fact is that China has now I think acquired a critical mass of of capabilities um it may not necessarily be able to match the United States in the design and production for example of the most advanced U um semiconductor uh production nodes um but um right across a wide range of of Technologies it does have significant capabilities and of course where China has um a very real Advantage is um in in in manufacturing China has these uh deep nodes of uh industrial engineering expertise uh linked by state-of-the-art um infrastructure networks this confers a very significant um advantage on China so irrespective of whether China actually does overtake the United States and these are the only two countries that matter in this in this contest um China is going to um be a consequential player here and um what it does will have some effect on on all of us uh you've recently written about how China spies in The Spectator magazine every country does though how does the scale and sophistication of China's spying compare well the scale certainly is beyond anything that anybody has previously experienced um and the simple fact is that uh there's a fundamental asymmetry of vulnerabilities here put crudely there is a lot less that the West wants to steal from China than China wants to steal from the West I mean you know that that in time will balance out but from for the time being China's appit appetite sorry for um intelligence um about the west and and and the capacity to exercise influence in the west covertly is is virtually Limitless um you know there huge resources uh being uh applied to this and also China is able to achieve a kind of multiplier effect through the way in which it um makes its technology available particularly to countries in the developing world that you know that that really gives them you know quite a significant um advantage in terms of sophistication I would say that the picture is a bit more mixed um you know that you know CH China's um cyber um operations used to be um characterized by rather LAX tradecraft they weren't didn't seem to be trying very hard to conceal who they were we've seen a marked increase in sophistication there uh when it comes to U human intelligence operations there is these tend to be characterized by a combination of um quite um um quite sophisticated um assessment of vulnerabilities and how to exploit them but comes with a rather tined approach to the cultural Dimension the other thing is I think if um um if you agree to spy for China you might find yourself getting surprisingly well paid but if anything goes wrong um you not going to get any support or backup from them so how do they go about recruiting people for human intelligence well pretty much the same way everybody does it and has done since uh the um dawn of time really that they uh look at you they they identify people um who either have or might have the potential to acquire access to uh useful intelligence make study them and of course with modern social media um it's orders of magnitude easier to do this than than was the case before uh we had modern information Communications Technologies um and then you look identify particularly areas of vulnerability or motivation um that they might be able to exploit um normally they they approach people um you know certainly foreigners um are are not approach using coercive means although the Chinese intelligence services do use things like honey traps uh in China and actually sometimes outside um but generally the idea is you know to work on positive motivation um it often just boils down to money quite honestly because China's IDE you in the cold war with the Soviet Union ideology was a factor um it's less much less so in relation to China um so so it tends more more to be um about money I mean a case in point I think I cited in in that article was a former CIA officer Kevin mallerie you know he was down on his luck you know unemployed behind was his mortgage um his uh profile on LinkedIn made it pretty clear that you know he work he had worked for the CIA and was desperate um to look for employment and um you know the Chinese simply sent him in a message on LinkedIn saying we'd like to invite you to China to attend some event um and maybe you could write a paper for us and once they got into China um the the rest came pretty quickly uh we're seeing now quite a lot of approaches um um to uh foreign students uh studying in China um where they're of course totally accessible um U Can Can can be subject to 360 degree uh surveillance uh while they're there and of course these students um in the main do not currently have access to uh what we would consider intelligence but the hope is that they can be steered into positions where they they can acquire such intelligence and in in in in a very real sense that this is kind of Holy Grail for any intelligence organization get somebody young feed them into the system and bring them up through it tell me a bit more about about the breadth of the the kind of tools the agencies the contractors that China uses both at home and abroad to carry out its ESP well yes I mean the the fact is that well let's look at the Cyber side of things um because um the appetite for um U information is such that um the intelligence Services the ministry of State security um and the military simply do not have enough capacity inhouse to cover everything so they are subcontracting a lot of their activity to um um cyber security companies um often set up by people who were known in the 1990s as patriotic hackers um people who you know got into Western systems because they thought it was the right right thing to do for to promote China's interests um and we've seen examples of of of of these companies you know being contracted um to cover an enormously wide range of of targets all around the world so that that that is I think the first thing but it goes beyond this because um China is perhaps best thought of as kind of intelligence state in much the same way as the Venetian Republic was at its apery in the 17th um uh 16 17th centuries when you um covert activities covert collection uh was kind of integral to the functioning of the state and this is very much true for China now the Chinese Communist Party um you know was um forged in in a Cru of of clandestinity for the first two decades of their existence they were engaged in a no holds B vicious intelligence war with the ruling nationalists and and and that culture uh remains very much a part of how the Chinese state does things so when we talk about Espionage we see you know a lot of U activity being undertaken U by individuals who are not formally part of China's intelligence apparatus um an extreme example of this was a couple of years ago the United States started noticing uh a high incidence of uh Chinese Nationals reporting to be tourists attempting to make their way into military bases um and effectively um seeing how far they could get initially this was thought um to be um not something that would was um coordinated but I think more recently the US government has concluded that it was more coordinated um and it's just simp you know one of a number of examples of where China is looking to use um the freedoms of an open Society uh to maximize um you know to to see how far they can push see how far they can get and what was spying like when you were in China well there's not much I can say about that I would simply say that China is What U my colleagues in the CIA um would refer to as a denied area uh by which it's meant that you everything uh imaginable is against you the entire system is designed to ensure uh that it's going to be very difficult for anyone securely to meet have contact with recruit and run um agents with with within China and I think that remains even more the case today when you have pervasive technological surveillance facial recognition cameras everywhere you've got a you know a so-called grid management system in which all um cities towns are divided up uh into grids um uh with with one individual being responsible for monitoring and Reporting on all activities that take place um within their particular um grid um so and um and of course um the the ability of the Chinese intelligence services in country to monitor um your technology um your phone and and and other digital apparatus around the clock so it is a a very big challenge to operate in a country uh country like that and how would you judge the threat posed by China to the west and how good do you think the West defenses are well um I think that that that you know that that's very difficult the first part of your question is quite difficult to answer because a lot of the threat is I might say hypothetical rather than real and imminent uh things like for example China's uh theft of um population level data set uh obviously it's not desirable for them to do that they're doing it for a range of purposes some of these purposes may never really come to anything so um you that makes it very difficult but I think um in terms of I I think probably the biggest concern when it comes to um Chinese Espionage and I would add covert activities RIT large um is is in terms of their efforts um to um exercise political influence through a variety of means um I mean at the end of the day for the Chinese Communist Party the overarching is priority is to maintain um the political and ideological security of the party which means that they cannot tolerate any um criticism or push back um against their system anywhere in the world so a key imperative is to neutralize any opposition or criticism wherever it may occur and we're seeing a lot of focus now on that within the West uh using commercial relationships um Elite capture um and and more covert techniques uh I think such as uh seeking covertly to exercise influence in governments in in legisl um we've seen a lot of this in in Australia in Canada we're starting to see it here and in other Western European countries as well so I think you know those are in in some respects um greater worries uh than some of the more conventional uh Chinese um Espionage activities in pursuit of National Security and National advantage and in that context of exercising political influence when the current British foreign secretary David Cameron was prime minister he famously coined this phrase of the Golden Era to describe relations with China I mean how did you react at the time and do you think he was played in hindsight um I do think that there was a certain element of naivity in that it's fairly clear I mean I wasn't involved in government so I can't really comment from the inside but it seemed fairly clear to me that the concerns of uh the UK security Community had not been taken into account when adopting this approach that said I can understand um why um um back then um the the government of the day you know did look at this in terms of how um the United Kingdom could derive Optimum benefit from uh commercial and economic relations with China and I think this is this is a challenge for any country that's basically not China or the United States um which which which is you know how uh when dealing with China to reconcile the interests of the economic Ministries and the security Ministries Which pull in very opposite directions and I think the short answer is there is no one-sized fits all you know single um answer to this um each country has to work it out for itself and um um in in this regard you know policy will will not be static I think we will see um the the dial shifting to some degree from one to the other depending on the circumstances how well do you think we understand China I mean you you uh believe that President XI is uh uses Nuance language to shape perceptions determine outcomes how how he uses it and influence people for example and our language skills are not very advanced in Mandarin um H how well do you think we can really get a grasp of of of the Chinese ambition and how it wants to view the West do we understand it properly not as well as we should um but that doesn't mean it's impossible I mean I think you the Chinese like to kid themselves that they are so you know difficult to understand that we're never going to be um you know able to do it it I think a few years ago um they seem to operate in the naive conviction if they that if they said something in Chinese but not in any Western language we would not notice I think they've kind of woken up to that now and realize that yes we do you know people like me do read to and listen to this stuff we do take note of what they say in Chinese um we don't have anything like as much um linguistic expertise or area and cult knowledge um as we should um certainly not within uh government circles I mean there are efforts now certainly the intelligence Community is working hard um and I think successfully to to remedy this um um deficit it's not their fault um you know let's not forget that for the previous decade um the intelligence and security communities had per forc to be focused on the threat from transnational terrorism um you know there is only so much resource to go around but it's starting to happen now but I think more widely within government um it's still the case that knowledge of China uh and ability to speak the language is not really yet valued sufficiently is not something you know that gets you promotion and Rec uh recognition in the way that I think needs now to be the case the US Secretary of State and anony blinkin recently met with President XI and he spoke president XI of three cre three key principles afterwards mutual respect peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation the US is unhappy about the way China is supporting Russia's war effort China's not happy about the aid package announced for Taiwan and the potential expansion of the orcus military partnership how optimistic are you about any of those three points that President she brought up well I mean you this is fairly um standard language that c used um and you know there the general Chinese Approach at the moment is if if only the United States would stop doing all the things we don't like uh think your relations would be wonderful I mean the brutal truth is um that um the differences between the United States and China are structural um the they they um about values about ideology about different geopolitical interests and preoccupations and these are not things that are easily reconciled and I think both sides actually recognize that um last year certainly the first half of 2023 it seemed as if cin ping was blanking the Americans refusing to have any engagement with them um believing that you know any any such engagement would result in outcomes detrimental to China's interests I think he has moved off that I mean in in 2023 in the latter part of 2023 it was clear um that um on the one hand the G7 on the other hand the so-called Global South were becoming increasingly concerned about the deterioration in us China relations and respectively bent the ears of Biden and SE on this since when we have seen uh a number of efforts by both the USA uh and China so to speak to put a flaw under the deterioration in the relationship and to try to manage it in such a way that the tensions um inherent in this relationship are not allowed to get out of control I think there's been some um success in that it's more form than substance um but form uh can have its own value uh when it comes to diplomatic engagement um so I think we what we've got is a kind of uneasy calm and uneasy truce um if you will um in which nothing fundamental has shifted and and is in like unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future and how do you think the the next president of the United States will shape that relationship with China I don't think that anything fund fental will change um I think the Chinese themselves um are looking at the forthcoming election and thinking well essentially what they're being offered is a CH a choice between dying of cancer and dying of a heart attack you know there is no good option um here I think they're worried that if Trump does come into power again he will um quickly default to um imposing very sign ific tariffs on on on Chinese products um and is unlikely to cut China much slack if one looks at the sort of people who look as if they might uh make up a trump China team uh these are not doves the these are hawks um so from that point of view I don't think Trump is going to uh give China an easy ride um and if Biden is returned to power then I think it will simply be a continuation and um intensification of the policies that U his administration has been pursuing um in in in the area of technology in the area of trade in the area of Taiwan the three T's that that in many ways Define this relationship and just finally um in your view what do you think the West security priorities should be in defending against any potential threat posed by China well I me I think the first thing is to um achieve a sensible um balance in terms of assessing what the threats are one finds particularly in relation to the United States that um um people either um look at China as uh the sum of all evils so to speak um you know that you know every everything they do is um harmful to the United uh States's interests or people in in Wall Street um in Silicon Valley who who want to have you know the closest possible relationship with China I think there needs to be some kind of synthesis here that that amounts to a realistic assessment of what China really is rather than defaulting to um extreme analyses which are almost by definition going to be incorrect um I think the second thing is that we we need to look at where our vulnerabilities are in relation to China and start to do some serious thinking about how we address those vulnerabilities and weaknesses Nigel linkster it has been great speaking to you thank you so much for your time my pleasure you've been watching Frontline for times radio with me K chabo my thanks to our producers today L syes and Morgan berdick and for you for watching if you'd like to supporters you can subscribe now or you can listen to times radio for the latest news and in-depth analysis or go to the times.co.uk for now though thanks for watching bye-bye

Channel: Times Radio

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Id: 8MT_gCGv4GY

Length: 39min 2sec (2342 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024