China's soft espionage

It's true, as Andor Šándor and others have pointed out, that the 2011 annual report from the BIS counterintelligence service contains little new information. It mentions the usual links between corrupt politicians and businessmen and devotes 600 words to the spy activities of the Russians, which is twice as much space as last year. The Chinese, in contrast, get just one short paragraph of 75 words, down from 100 last year and zero in previous years. BIS particularly warns about third parties who are Czech but represent Chinese interests in the background, esp. in terms of buying technology and making investments. In other words, BIS is saying that some Czechs are secretly working for the Chinese. This sounds like important new information to us. In its own way, this is even more dangerous than the Russian variety of economic influence, where the involvement of a foreign power is often easy to spot.