China may be monitoring e-mails, cellphone calls and text messages to and from senior Taiwanese military officers, a new study from the Project 2049 Institute in Washington said.
The information gathered from the monitoring most likely goes to the Chinese Communist Party’s principal arm for political warfare, the study written by former Pentagon official Mark Stokes said.
He said it might facilitate assessment of individuals “with access and influence” for political purposes.
“These data collections are useful for evaluating and selecting officers for clandestine political warfare campaigns, among other functions,” Stokes said.
The study sheds new light on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) General Staff Department (GSD) Third Department Second Bureau and its broad communications intelligence mission.
“The GSD Third Department, often referred to as 3PLA, is roughly analogous to the US National Security Agency,” Stokes said.
It has direct authority over 12 operational bureaus, three research institutes and a computing center. Eight of the 12 operational bureau headquarters are clustered in Beijing, two are based in Shanghai, one in Qingdao and one in Wuhan.
“The bureau allegedly maintains a data base on military officers from Taiwan, and presumably other foreign military personnel with a rank of colonel and above,” the study said.
“Profiles, updated on a semi-monthly basis, include basic data such as date and place of birth, education, personal habits, family and current location,” it said.
Stokes said that last year, the US indicted five PLA officers on charges of cyberespionage against US firms.
The five were assigned to the same group that is monitoring Taiwan military officers and that group appears to have “responsibilities well beyond cyberespionage.”
The Second Bureau oversees a work station in the vicinity of a major submarine cable landing station on Chongming Island and probably a unit near the Nanhui cable landing station.
“Second Bureau elements with direct access to fiber optic cable landing stations could buffer communications traffic entering and leaving China,” Stokes wrote.
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