Missteps and appeasement by the U.S. government helped China develop into a dangerous global power, according to “The China Threat: How the People’s Republic Targets America” (Regnery), a new book by Bill Gertz, national security reporter for The Washington Times.
In the first of three excerpts, he details the hunt for Chinese spies burrowed deep inside the U.S. government.
In the early 1990s, the FBI came across evidence that amounted to a counterspy’s worst nightmare: Classified reports showed communist China was running several “assets” spies, in the vernacular who operated clandestinely inside the U.S. government.
One spy, however, was different from the others. He didn’t work for just any agency. He had burrowed deep inside the U.S. intelligence community, meaning that the People’s Republic of China had access to vital secrets.
The information was revealed to FBI counterintelligence agents in highly sensitive communications intercepts between the Chinese Embassy in Washington and Chinese intelligence officers in Beijing. The intercepts suggested the agent was supplying the Chinese with classified defense information.
The spy’s code name was “Ma” Chinese for “horse.”
A Chinese government official who defected to the United States after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 also told U.S. intelligence that China had successfully developed five to 10 clandestine sources of information here.
The defector said these agents were known as “Dear Friends” of China. And one had access to the most sensitive U.S. intelligence data, known as Top Secret-Sensitive Compartmented Information, or SCI.
FBI counterintelligence agents’ search for this Chinese “mole” led to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. A key suspect emerged: Ronald Montaperto.
At the time, Mr. Montaperto was a senior DIA analyst specializing in “estimates,” or analyses, of matters related to China and East Asia.
His job required making official contacts with Chinese government and military officials. In Washington, that meant defense attaches posted to the Chinese Embassy.
Chinese defense attaches are officers who work for the military intelligence department of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Staff. One was PLA Maj. Gen. Yu Zhenghe, the air attache, who had developed a close relationship with Mr. Montaperto close enough to be invited to his wedding in 1990.
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