P Kharel
Election year fever of an unusual type has seized the United States President Donald Trump’s strategy to stem the sag in his public approval rating, even as opponent, former Vice-President Joe Biden, takes a lead of more than 12 points in the various public opinion polls. As the Republican Party candidate, Trump had narrowly defeated the Democratic Party opponent Hillary Clinton in November 2016.
For the first time and so consistently, Trump’s unfathomable allegations against his critics and overbearing claims against political rivals have begun to erode his support base. China seems to be the proverbial straw for the clearly fledgling campaign of the incumbent president, who has earned the tag of one of the most controversial occupants of the White House in the post-World War decades.
Trump’s desperation is echoed by observation made by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria about the president’s “use of unsubstantiated claim of election rigging in the US”. This explains why hardly a day passes without some sweeping comments passed or threatening notes issued by either the president himself or one of his lieutenants. Pressure is also being mounted upon American allies — mostly of the European mould — to take measures aimed at what is seen as the beginning of a partial economic boycott. In response, American allies get to make the right noises for the White House ears.
Vote-getting ploy
Republican campaign strategists want to convince voters that it is only Trump who not only can stand up to China but also contain the communist regime when it comes to “aggressive expansion in South China Sea”, copyright theft and supposedly dubious economic deals waylaying the weak and corrupt. Last fortnight, Washington ordered Beijing to close down its consulate in Houston, described as a “spying hub”. In a message that it is not taking things lying down, Beijing retaliated with a prompt directive that the US ceases operations in Chengdu.
Cyber espionage is the new arena where non-Western players have enhanced their presence causing big worries in the former on account of their vulnerabilities to the resultant intrusion into their state secrets. Western monopoly has suffered a deep dent. The days of a single bloc’s heavy dominance in the secretive operations of espionage seem to be drawing to a close. Today, individual states might enjoy a cutting edge over another state in certain stances for some time—but not for all occasions and through all routes.
Of late, a spate of reports in the British media suggests that Russian and Chinese spy agencies have expanded their intelligence networks against Britain and the US. The British Telegraph newspaper said the Kremlin “tried to meddle in Scottish independence vote”. Russian hacking, asserted a report in the Economist magazine, tries to gain access to American, British and Canadian vaccine research. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner reported that a dossier compiled with the help of a former spy for the British intelligence agency MI6 accuses China of trying to manipulate key British figures to back the telecom giant’s business in the once imperial power.
Spy agencies are all engaged in the “murky” business of gathering information, trying to manipulate people and engineering decisions. Even if the Western media allegations against Beijing and Moscow were true, it would not be surprising at all. Five years ago, the US was stunned that its six decades of espionage network in China had been “smashed”.
An AFP story gives an inkling of how things are transacted in the secretive cloak and dagger operations: “For more than 70 years, Moscow has filled its embassy and consulates in the United States with intelligence operatives — as Washington does with its own diplomatic outposts in Russia — giving them the mission of stealing the most significant secrets of a longtime adversary.”
In this business, even the best of allies are not spared. In 2016, German Chancellor Angela Merkel replaced the chief of her foreign intelligence service, Gerhard Schindler, after Edward J. Snowden, a former American contractor for the US National Security Agency, disclosure that Washington had tapped her cellphone. American President Barack Obama tried to pacify Merkel but she was far from being convinced about the suggested oversight.
Winner of many international journalism awards, Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks dropped a big bomb with documents showing the American Central Intelligence Agency’s possession of cyber weapons that could intrude into Apple and Android smartphones, Windows computers, automotive computer systems, online calling service, Skype, Wi-Fi networks and a series of other manifestations of the new information and communication technology.
Secrecy & loyalty
In the 1950s and the 1960s, British aggressive campaign against communism, known as “containment”, deployed “Z” agents that included journalists, publishers and businessmen recruited by MI 6. Callously corrupt pilfered state secrets to sell them to foreign forces for money and other dubious incentives.
In Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA Transition, Admiral Stansfield Turner, former Director of the US Central Intelligence, says: “The most adverse exposure was a series of revelations about more than ten years of CIA interference in Chile, from 1963 to 1973, when the CIA underwrote more than half of the expenses of the Christian Democratic Party’s campaign. This support was directed at defeating the communist candidate, Salvador Allende.”
Informers, agents, and deep agents are recruited to prey on politicians, policymakers, scientists, research institutions and professionals, among others. Turner, who looked after also the CIA during the Carter presidency, admits: “The CIA looks for college graduates who have excelled academically and who work well with people.”
Spying takes place everywhere by any number of agencies. Now no longer in circulation, The Independent weekly reported on “Thimpu Spy Ring!” Inmates of a refugee camp in Nepal’s Jhapa district nabbed Bishnu Rai, an agent of the Bhutanese army, who confessed having been deputed to spy on Bhutanese dissidents and refugees in Nepal. There were nine spies in his group. Sleuthing skills, well-placed contacts and connections are the prized possessions of those engaged in espionage. Often the motto of spies is to plant lies for disinformation while also ingratiating themselves to well-placed people for the vital information their recruiters hunger for.
Spying makes a hero for whom an agent works for but gets the tag of a traitor from those s/he spies against. Loyalty constitutes a highly valued virtue in the world of spies. States with no anti-espionage or counterintelligence agencies are either a heaven without intrusion into state secrets or a haven for conspiratorial activity by forces within and outside.
(Professor P. Kharel specialises in political communication.)
– The Risign Nepal
