China steps up spying on U.S. military

Li Shangfu (center), who was slapped with U.S. sanctions this week for buying arms from Russia, is director of the Equipment Development Department of China’s Central Military Commission. The department announced a database that will likely benefit from China’s theft of 22.1 million records on American federal workers, including those with security clearances, from the Office of Personnel Management in 2015. (Photo by: Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press/File)

 

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is stepping up open-source spying on the U.S. military and other foreign militaries that will utilize artificial intelligence means.

According to a procurement notice from China’s Central Military Commission, the new database is a six-month project to set up an “Open Source Intelligence Database on Foreign Militaries.”

The revealing notice was published by the commission’s PLA Equipment Development Department, whose director, Lt. Gen. Li Shangfu, was slapped with U.S. sanctions this week for buying arms from Russia.

The database will likely benefit from China’s theft of 22.1 million records on American federal workers, including those with security clearances, from the Office of Personnel Management in 2015. Chinese hackers also stole an estimated 80 million records on Americans from health care insurance giant Anthem.

U.S. officials believe the mass data collection by China is being used with artificial intelligence software as part of both cyber and human espionage operations.

“In light of the diverse sources, complex varieties and huge quantities of open-source intelligence coupled with its high collection costs and the existing issues of scattered [collection] resources and low utilization efficiency, an open source intelligence database on foreign militaries and national defense is to be established,” the online notice said.

Open-source intelligence “on major countries and regions’ militaries and defense industry are to be collected; and intelligence and data processing is to be prosecuted to provide services and support to relevant work.”

The targets of the collection program are publicly available defense information from the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, Japan, India and other major military powers. Categories of information will include personnel, organizations, conferences, documents, special operations and military basing, all of which will be cross-referenced.

The Chinese military is going after information on “key personnel in national defense establishments, including high-level military officers, important civilian personnel, important military researchers and other relevant information.” Armed forces and combat units, policy and national defense think tanks, military research groups and higher education research also will be spied on.

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CHINA BUILDING HARDENED ICBM SILO

Satellite photos of a Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile base reveal Beijing is constructing a super-hardened silo for its new DF-41 multi-warhead missile.

Retired Indian Army Col. Vinayak Bhat, a satellite imagery specialist, disclosed the new hardened silo at the Taiyuan Space Launch Center in northeastern Shanxi province.

“China is working feverishly to safeguard its nuclear weapons from a possible first strike by the United States,” Col. Bhat stated in the New Delhi website The Print.

“It is focusing on the development of super-hardened silo technology for various basing concepts, which requires research on nuclear hardness and survivability of each basing,” he stated.

The silo was spotted in commercial satellite photos about three-quarters of a mile from another missile silo at the base. Construction began in 2013 and is nearly complete. The size of the silo — around 7 meters in diameter — is a sign that it is meant for the new DF-41.

Evidence for the hardened silo includes the placing of almost all of its support facilities underground.

“During the entire construction process, the main silo door was covered with a semi-permanent shed, possibly to hide overhead observations,” Col. Bhat said. “The entire system seems to be fully automated, with all expected support facilities compatible and interconnected with some artificial intelligence command and control system.”

Col. Bhat estimated that the silo could be between 60 meters and 100 meters deep.

“In creating such a deeply buried, super-hardened silo system, China’s aim seems to be a prompt response while ensuring survivability,” he said. “The new silo system seems to be impregnable for American earth-penetrating weapons, although only a comprehensive engineering study can possibly prove its technical feasibility and vulnerabilities.”

The U.S. nuclear arsenal contains only one warhead with limited earth-penetrating capability — and none capable of penetrating deep into underground bunkers like the DF-41 silo.

Full article: China steps up spying on U.S. military (The Washington Times)