Secret Russian intelligence document shows deep suspicion of China

The Straits Times: In public, President Vladimir Putin of Russia says his country’s growing friendship with China is unshakeable – a strategic military and economic collaboration that has entered a golden era.

But in the corridors of Lubyanka, the headquarters of Russia’s domestic security agency known as the FSB, a secretive intelligence unit refers to the Chinese as “the enemy”.

This unit, which has not previously been disclosed, has warned that China is a serious threat to Russian security. Its officers say that Beijing is increasingly trying to recruit Russian spies and get its hands on sensitive military technology, at times by luring disaffected Russian scientists.

The intelligence officers say that China is spying on the Russian military’s operations in Ukraine to learn about Western weapons and warfare.

They fear that Chinese academics are laying the groundwork to make claims on Russian territory.

And they have warned that Chinese intelligence agents are carrying out espionage in the Arctic using mining firms and university research centres as cover.

The threats are laid out in an eight-page internal FSB planning document, obtained by The New York Times, that sets priorities for fending off Chinese espionage.

The document is undated, raising the possibility that it is a draft, though it appears from context to have been written in late 2023 or early 2024.

Ares Leaks, a cyber-crime group, obtained the document but did not say how it did so.

That makes definitive authentication impossible, but the Times shared the report with six Western intelligence agencies, all of which assessed it to be authentic.

The document gives the most detailed behind-the-scenes view to date of Russian counter-intelligence’s thinking about China.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow’s new bond with Beijing has shifted the global balance of power.

The rapidly expanding partnership is one of the most consequential, and opaque, relationships in modern geopolitics.

Russia has survived years of Western financial sanctions following the invasion, proving wrong the many politicians and experts who predicted the collapse of the country’s economy.

That survival is in no small part due to China.

China is the largest customer for Russian oil and provides essential computer chips, software and military components. When Western companies fled Russia, Chinese brands stepped in to replace them.

The two countries say they want to collaborate in a vast number of areas, including making movies and building a base on the moon.

Mr Putin and Mr Xi Jinping, China’s leader, are doggedly pursuing what they call a partnership with “no limits”.

But the top-secret FSB memo shows there are, in fact, limits.

“You have the political leadership, and these guys are all for rapprochement with China,” said Mr Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia’s intelligence services who lives in exile in Britain and who reviewed the document at the request of the Times. “You have the intelligence and security services, and they are very suspicious.”

Mr Putin’s spokesperson, Mr Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the document.

The Russian document describes a “tense and dynamically developing” intelligence battle in the shadows between the two outwardly friendly nations.