This is a list of activities carried out by U.S. intelligence agencies in thePeople's Republic of China and theRepublic of China (Taiwan).
Chiang Kai-shek,President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), suspected that theUnited States was plotting a coup, or potential assassination, against him. In 1950, his sonChiang Ching-kuo became director of thesecret police, which he remained until 1965. Chiang also considered some people who were friends to Americans to be his enemies. An enemy of the Chiang family,Wu Kuo-chen, was kicked out of his position of governor of Taiwan byChiang Ching-kuo and fled to America in 1953.[1] Chiang Ching-kuo, educated in theSoviet Union, initiated a Soviet style military reorganization in the Republic of China's military, which reorganized and Sovietized the political officer corps, surveillance, andKuomintang party activities. Opposed to this wasSun Li-jen, who was educated at the AmericanVirginia Military Institute.[2]
Chiang orchestrated the controversial court-martial and arrest of General Sun Li-jen in August 1955, for plotting a coup d'état with the AmericanCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) against his father Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. The CIA allegedly wanted to help Sun take control of Taiwan and declare its independence.[1][3]
In order to open a second front in the Korean War, CIA officers decided to rely upon a second plan. CIA operators were fearful ofMao Zedong's entry into the war and estimated that a substantial amount of Kuomintang Nationalist guerillas were available to work with the agency. They also estimated that Muslim horsemen led byMa Bufang would be willing to launch attacks against China in its western regions. When both of these efforts proved to be overly projected in terms of success and strategic actualities, the U.S., convinced that a third force was available within China, decided to invest resources into securing such a force to its efforts. In order to facilitate resistance against China's involvement in Korea, the CIA invested over $100 million in buying weapons that would be used by "third force" guerillas in China. The Agency scarcely could find any anti-Mao sentiment within their contacts, however, with the only signs of life being a group of refugees in Okinawa, invariably proven to be a group more interested in obtaining their own goals than in truly assisting the United States.[4]
Eventually, the CIA declassified its records and admitted the failures of the Third Force strategy.[5] The list illuminated a quick study on insurgency failures. According to the documents, the CIA began dropping small guerilla units into China, the first Third Force team having been deployed in April, 1952. All four members of the team were never heard from again. The second Third Force team was made up of five ethnic Chinese agents, and dropped into the Jilin region of Manchuria in mid-July 1952. The team eventually reported contact with local rebel leaders. The team was, unbeknownst to the CIA, captured and turned by the Chinese, setting up the ensuing trap. The CIA responded by sending in a rescue unit, only to have its planes shot down and its principal agents assigned to the mission,Jack Downey andDick Fecteau, captured.[6] Both men were subsequently sentenced to prison sentences in China. Beijing later boasted of the insurgency failures of their United States counterparts. At that point, the CIA had dropped 212 agents into China, resulting in 101 agents killed and 111 captured.[5][7][8][page needed] Michael D. Coe, who had been recruited by the CIA and worked within the agency during the Third Force events, stated that the CIA "had been sold a bill of goods by the Nationalists that there was a huge force of resistance inside of China. We were barking up the wrong tree. The whole operation was a waste of time."[9]
In 1959, China learned that United States spy planes were carrying out missions throughout China, including above Beijing.[10]: 43 Anti-air brigades were able to shoot down a few United States spy planes in the early 1960s, but their overall inefficacy demonstrated the limitations of the People's Liberation Army in responding to aircraft incursions.[10]: 43
Starting in the late 1950s and continuing throughout the 1960s, the CIA provided Tibetanguerrilla groups, including theChushi Gangdruk group with material assistance and aid, including arms and ammunition, as well as training to members of Chushi Gangdruk and other Tibetan guerrilla groups atCamp Hale.[11][12][13][14] The CIA program in Tibet was part of a broader geopolitical strategy aimed at countering Communist expansionism and influence in Asia during the Cold War.[15] The program ended in 1972 in the wake of the U.S' normalizing of diplomatic relations with China.[16]
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the CIA maintained close relations with Chinese intelligence agencies.[17] Joint efforts were conducted to construct listening posts in northwest China to monitor Soviet communications as part of Project Chestnut,[17][18] and during the1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the CIA monitored the movement through a network of informants within Chinese intelligence as well as within the protest movement, to whom they aided by providing communications equipment including fax machines and typewriters.[17] The CIA's network in China later aided the escape of the leaders of the protest movement with the help of sympathizers in Hong Kong.[19]
In 2001, an official plane built in the United States forGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyJiang Zemin was found to have listening devices installed.[20]: 53 Chinese authorities located at least 20 devices, including one in the headboard of the bed.[21] The listening devices were capable of being operated via satellite.[21]
According to an investigation byThe New York Times, the government of the PRC was able to eitherkill or imprison 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012; an article inForeign Policy cited a higher number, putting the number of sources killed at at least 30.[22][23] A joint CIA andFBIcounterintelligence operation set up to investigate the intelligence failure advanced three different theories[23][24] as to why the spy network was dismantled: (1) there was a mole within the CIA, (2) "sloppy tradecraft" and (3) PRC intelligence agents had hacked the covert system the CIA used to communicate with its foreign sources.The New York Times said that the debate over the cause remained unsolved while a former American intelligence official cited by Foreign Policy said investigators concluded that it was caused by a "confluence and combination of events."[22] In January 2018, a former CIA officer namedJerry Chun Shing Lee was arrested and would eventually plead guilty[25][26] on suspicion of helping dismantle the network[24] while theForeign Policy article ascribed, notwithstanding the arrest, the failure to the ability of the PRC intelligence agencies to penetrate the CIA's communication system.[22]
The2010s global surveillance disclosures byEdward Snowden demonstrated extensive United States intelligence activities in China.[27]: 129 This heightened fears by Chinese policymakers of cyberattacks against China.[27]: 129 As part of its response, theChinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2014 formed theCybersecurity and Information Leading Group[27]: 129 and theNational People's Congress passed theCyber Security Law.[27]: 250
Sun Bo, a general manager of theChina Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, was investigated for corruption and supplying classified information to the CIA, including technical specifications of theChinese aircraft carrierLiaoning, according toAsia Times.[28] Sun Bo was sentenced to 12 years in prison on July 4, 2019.[29]
A December 2020 article by Zach Dorfman inForeign Policy suggested that decades ofcorruption inside of the CCP had created vulnerabilities exploited by outside intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA. CCP purges under the guise ofanti-corruption were at least partially motivated by counterintelligence concerns.[30]
In October 2021, citing a leaked CIA cable,The New York Times reported that the CIA had admitted to have lost a "troubling number of informants" recruited from countries including China in recent years, with informants being killed, captured or compromised. The leaked cable comes amid China's recent efforts in hunting down CIA sources to turn them into double agents.[31] The memo also mentions a "breach of the classified communications system" that led to spy networks in China being caught and that some officials believe that treasonous US intelligence officers may be the culprits responsible for the arrests and execution of CIA spies.[31]
On May 1, 2025, the CIA released two videos filmed in Mandarin with Chinese subtitle luring Chinese officials to leak Chinese state secrets to the United States as CIA chiefJohn Ratcliffe vowed to expand the agency's focus on Beijing.[32]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)This included bringing 133 Tibetans to the United States for training in political, propaganda and paramilitary techniques;
While initial suspicion focused on graft and corruption, later reports suggested that Sun might have handed over key details of the Liaoning project to CIA agents.
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| Geographic activities | ||
| Transnational activities | ||
| Directors of Central Intelligence and Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency |
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| Major international operations | ||
| Notable works |
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| CIA activities by country | ||