[2022-09-15] 纽约时报 - 观点 中国正在开展可能严重压倒我们的秘密行动
By Nigel Inkster
Nigel Inkster (@NigelInkster) is a former director of operations and intelligence for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, from which he retired in 2006. He is the senior adviser for cybersecurity and China at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
奈杰尔·英克斯特
奈杰尔·英克斯特是英国秘密情报局的前运营和情报总监，于 2006 年退休。他是国际战略研究所网络安全和中国问题的高级顾问。
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In my three-decade career with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, China was never seen as a major threat.
在我为英国秘密情报局工作的三十年职业生涯中，中国从未被视为主要威胁。
If we lost sleep at night, it was over more immediate challenges such as Soviet expansionism and transnational terrorism. China’s halting emergence from the chaotic Mao Zedong era and its international isolation after Chinese soldiers crushed pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989 made it seem like an insular backwater.
如果我们晚上睡不着觉，那是因为苏联扩张主义和跨国恐怖主义等更紧迫的挑战。 1989 年，中国士兵在天安门广场镇压民主示威后，中国从混乱的毛泽东时代中步履蹒跚，以及在国际上孤立无援，这使它看起来像是一个孤立的死水。
It’s a different picture today. China has acquired global economic and diplomatic influence, enabling covert operations that extend well beyond traditional intelligence gathering, are growing in scale and threaten to overwhelm Western security agencies.
今天是另一幅景象。 中国已经能对全球经济和外交有一定的影响力，其秘密行动远远超出了传统的情报收集范围，规模不断扩大，并威胁到西方安全机构。
The U.S. and British intelligence chiefs — the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, and the MI5 director general, Ken McCallum — signaled rising concern over this with an unprecedented joint news conference in July to warn of, as Mr. Wray put it, a “breathtaking” Chinese effort to steal technology and economic intelligence and to influence foreign politics in Beijing’s favor. The pace was quickening, they said, with the number of MI5 investigations into suspected Chinese activity having increased sevenfold since 2018.
美国和英国的情报负责人——联邦调查局 (F.B.I.) 克里斯托弗·雷（Christopher Wray）和军情五处（MI5）总干事肯·麦卡勒姆（Ken McCallum）在 7 月召开了史无前例的联合新闻发布会，警告称，正如雷先生所说，中国窃取技术和经济情报的行为“令人叹为观止”。 并影响对北京有利的外国政治。 他们说，这一步伐正在加快，军情五处对疑似中国活动的调查数量自 2018 年以来增加了七倍。
The culture of the Chinese Communist Party has always had a clandestine nature. But as the party has become an even more dominant force in China since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago, this has metastasized in state institutions. China can best be described as an intelligence state. The party views the business of acquiring and protecting secrets as an all-of-nation undertaking, to the point that rewards are offered to citizens for identifying possible spies and even schoolchildren are taught to recognize threats.
中国共产党的文化历来具有隐秘性。 但自从习近平主席十年前掌权以来，随着党在中国的主导力量变得更加强大，这种情况已经转移到国家机构中。 中国最好被描述为一个情报国家。 该党将获取和保护秘密的业务视为一项全国性的事业，以至于向公民提供奖励以识别可能的间谍，甚至教学生识别威胁。
The West cannot fight fire with fire. Mobilizing government, society and economic and academic systems around competition with foreign foes the way China does would betray Western values. But leaders of democracies need to internalize the sea change that has taken place in China and ensure that engagement with Beijing is tempered by a hardheaded sense of reality.
西方不能以火攻毒。 像中国那样动员政府、社会、经济和学术体系与外国敌人竞争，这将背叛西方价值观。 但民主国家的领导人需要将中国发生的巨变内化，并确保与北京的接触中带有一种顽强的现实感。
The last state intelligence threat of comparable magnitude was posed by the Soviets. But the Soviet Union was isolated and impoverished. China’s successful economy, on the other hand, is a key engine of global growth, vastly increasing Beijing’s reach.
最后一个具有相当规模的国家情报威胁是由苏联构成的。 但是苏联是孤立和贫穷的。 然而，中国成功的经济是全球增长的关键引擎，极大地扩大了北京的影响力。
Barely visible on the world stage 30 years ago, China’s intelligence agencies are now powerful and well resourced. They are adept at exploiting the vulnerabilities of open societies and growing dependence on China’s economy to collect vast volumes of intelligence and data. Much of this takes place in the cyber domain, such as the 2015 hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in which sensitive data on millions of federal employees was stolen. Chinese intelligence operatives also are present in state-owned enterprises, state media organizations and embassies and consulates. China’s consulate in Houston was closed by the Trump administration in 2020 after it served as a national hub for collecting high-tech intelligence.
30年前在世界舞台上几乎看不到的中国情报机构，但现在他们强大且资源充足。 他们擅长利用开放社会的脆弱性和对中国经济日益增长的依赖来收集大量情报和数据。 其中大部分发生在网络领域，例如 2015 年美国人事管理办公室的黑客攻击，其中数百万联邦雇员的敏感数据被盗。 中国情报人员也出现在国有企业、官方媒体机构和大使馆和领事馆。 中国驻休斯敦领事馆作为收集高科技情报的国家中心后，于 2020 年被特朗普政府关闭。
But Chinese covert operations don’t stop there.
但中国的秘密行动并不止于此。
China’s Intelligence Law which was enacted in 2017 required its citizens to assist intelligence agencies. But this legislation simply formalized a situation that had already been the norm. The wider China challenge comes from organizations and actors engaged in activities that may not conform to normal concepts of espionage.
中国于 2017 年颁布的《情报法》要求其公民协助情报机构。 但这项立法只是将一种已经成为常态的情况正式化。 更广泛的中国挑战来自从事可能不符合间谍活动正常概念的活动的组织和行为者。
Much of this is organized by the United Front Work Department, a party organization that seeks to co-opt well-placed members of Chinese diaspora communities — and whose scope has been expanded under Mr. Xi. China also endeavors to entice other Western citizens. A textbook case, exposed this year, involved a British politician whose office received substantial funding from an ethnic Chinese lawyer who thereby gained access to the British political establishment. One Chinese approach is to patiently cultivate relationships with politicians at the city or community level who show potential to rise to even higher office. Another is known as elite capture, in which influential Western corporate or government figures are offered lucrative sinecures or business opportunities in return for advocating policies that jibe with Chinese interests.
其中大部分是由统战部组织的，该部是一个党组织，旨在吸纳中国侨民社区的优秀成员——在习近平领导下，其范围已经扩大。 中国还努力吸引其他西方公民。 今年曝光的一个教科书案件涉及一名英国政客，他的办公室从一名华裔律师那里获得了大量资金，从而获得了进入英国政界的机会。 一种中国方法是耐心地与城市或社区层面的政客建立关系，这些政客显示出升任更高职位的潜力。 另一种被称为精英俘虏，其中有影响力的西方企业或政府人物获得丰厚的闲暇或商业机会，以换取倡导符合中国利益的政策。
For China, this work is about survival. Technology and business intelligence must be acquired to keep China’s economy growing fast enough to prevent social instability. Mr. Xi has stressed the need to adopt “asymmetrical” means to catch up to the West technologically.
对于中国来说，这项工作关乎生存。 必须获得技术和商业智能，以保持中国经济足够快的增长，以防止社会不稳定。 习近平强调需要采取“不对称”的方式在技术上赶超西方。
China may be ahead of the game now, but there are tools that Western intelligence and security agencies can bring into play, including providing staff members with the requisite language skills and an awareness of China and the workings of the Chinese Communist Party. But they need help.
中国现在可能处于领先地位，但西方情报和安全机构可以利用一些工具，包括为工作人员提供必要的语言技能以及对中国和中国共产党运作的认识。 但他们需要帮助。
Liberal democracies cannot just play defense; political leaders must champion greater investment in offensive intelligence collection capabilities and outreach programs that educate businesses, political organizations and other potential targets about their vulnerabilities. Systems also are needed to assess the national security implications of what otherwise might just seem normal commercial activities by Chinese companies or non-Chinese entities acting as fronts for Beijing.
自由民主国家不能只是防守； 政治领导人必须支持加大对进攻性情报收集能力和外展计划的投资，以教育企业、政治组织和其他潜在目标了解其脆弱性。 还需要系统来评估中国公司或作为北京掩护的非中国实体的正常商业活动对国家安全的影响。
New and more effective legislation that is attuned to the changing dynamics is vital. Britain is taking a step in the right direction. It looks set to enact a national security bill that would broaden the definition of espionage and take measures to create, as the Home Office put it, “a more challenging operating environment” for those acting as agents for foreign interests. Australia enacted similar legislation in 2018 to curb foreign covert political influence after concerns emerged over Chinese activity.
适应不断变化的动态的新的和更有效的立法至关重要。 英国正朝着正确的方向迈出一步。 它看起来将颁布一项国家安全法案，该法案将扩大间谍活动的定义，并采取措施，正如内政部所说，为那些充当外国利益代理人的人创造“更具挑战性的运营环境”。 在对中国活动的担忧出现后，澳大利亚于 2018 年颁布了类似的立法，以遏制外国的秘密政治影响。
Countering Beijing poses a difficult balancing act, especially in countries with large Chinese diaspora populations. A case in point was the F.B.I.’s program for preventing theft of economic and scientific intelligence from U.S. universities, started by the Trump administration under the China Initiative. The program had a chilling effect on ethnic Chinese scientists and engineers who felt they were unjustly victimized. It was terminated this year.
对抗北京是一项艰难的平衡行动，尤其是在有大量中国侨民的国家。 一个典型的例子是美国联邦调查局防止从美国大学窃取经济和科学情报的计划，该计划由特朗普政府根据“中国倡议”启动。 该计划对华裔科学家和工程师产生了寒蝉效应，他们认为自己受到了不公正的伤害。 它于今年终止。
Western countries shouldn’t be afraid to make bold moves. Actions like Britain’s mass expulsion of Soviet intelligence officers in 1971 after a surge of spying activity rarely, if ever, affect wider relations. Nor should the impact of espionage and subversion be overstated. The Soviet Union lost the Cold War not because of its intelligence operations — which were good — but because of the failure of its governing ideals.
西方国家不应该害怕采取大胆的行动。 像英国在间谍活动激增后于 1971 年大规模驱逐苏联情报官员这样的行动很少（如果有的话）影响更广泛的关系。 间谍活动和颠覆活动的影响也不应被夸大。 苏联输掉冷战不是因为它的情报行动——这很好——而是因为它的执政理念失败了。
The same may prove true with China. Western policymakers and intelligence services must innovate and adapt. But they also must ensure that strategies they employ honor the ideals of freedom, openness and lawfulness that pose the greatest threat to the Chinese party-state.
中国可能也是如此。 西方政策制定者和情报部门必须创新和适应。 但他们也必须确保他们采用的战略尊重对中国党国构成最大威胁的自由、开放和合法的理想。标红字体均为楼主更改，与原文作者无关。
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