Since coming to power in 2012, President Xi Jinping “has put a lot more emphasis and devoted a lot more resources to the internal state security apparatus,” including “severe internal checkups” on officials, said political analyst Willy Lam. The shift was part of an anti-corruption campaign that unseated China’s domestic security czar Zhou Yongkang and its top spymaster Ma Jian. In early 2012, China arrested a top US informant who had likely revealed the “names of numerous Chinese agents,” Major said. Ever since the Communists came to power in China in 1949, “there were active covert efforts to overthrow the regime,” Delury said. “The Chinese security and intelligence apparatus is very large and has very deep pockets,” Paul Monk, an expert on Chinese intelligence, told Agence France-Presse, adding that uncovering their activities was Washington’s “highest priority.”

Source: Manila Times May 23, 2017 13:41 UTC