China Ramping Up Intelligence Collection Efforts Against US: Expert
China is ramping up intelligence collection efforts against the United States, warns James Fannell, a former director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet. In late January, Japanese astronomers stationed in Hawaii noticed mysterious green laser beams that were being fired over the island. The laser beams were being shot down from space over one of the largest mountain ranges in Hawaii. Initially, when they first reported these beams to the public, these astronomers said that they came from a NASA satellite—they were thought to be American lasers. But just a week after their initial statement, the Japanese astronomers issued a correction saying that these green laser beams were not from a U.S. satellite, but instead, they more likely came from a Chinese satellite. Fannell said that the beams could be measuring quite a number of things including pollution, “the height, the altitude, the size, the shape, the distances of particular installations in Hawaiian Islands, which happen to have a lot of U.S. military facilities.” “They could be testing our reactions and responses from the U.S. installations in terms of their ability to detect these green lasers. So they could be watching for a response. They may have somebody’s computers already tapped and looking at what they say when they see the laser, testing our observatories that we have in the Big Island of Hawaii to see what their communications are,” Fannell told the “China in Focus” on NTD. He believed that it would be a mistake to disregard China’s actions or just assumed them to be related to the environment. “I think there’s definitely a military aspect to this given the presence that we have there in the islands from the Pacific Missile Range test facility (PMRs.) In Hawaii we’re testing our own nuclear ballistic missiles from Hawaii, to … Pearl Harbor and Camp Smith, Pacific fleet our submarine forces specifically, and even to the Big Island where the U.S. Army and Marine Corps does a lot of training there as well,” he said in an interview on March 14. “Mapping and using green lasers is another way of measuring our capabilities and our resources,” he added. “So part of their activity towards us, I think we will see much more as they increase the overt nature of their intelligence collection against the United States,” Fannell noted. He further pointed to the report on a spent rocket stage from a Chinese launch of a trio of spy satellites burned up over Texas on March 8. “Given the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts that the PRC has been conducting more and more focused on the United States that we need to be aware of what these are,” he noted, using the official name of the People’s Republic of China. “Was this just a normal space launch that went awry? Or was this something related to some other kind of grand strategy that the Chinese have to use their military resources to isolate or even attack the United States?” he added. Seek Access to Artic Fannell singled out the report on Chinese surveillance buoys discovered in Arctic waters last fall that were intercepted by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). According to him, these objects would help the communist regime to collect data on the Arctic environment, the sea environment, the sea temperature, the salinity, the currents, and things of that nature. Fannell believed that the move serves the regime’s effort to “access through the Arctic, to be able to transit ships up there to carry supplies and goods to Europe, from China instead of having to go all the way through the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, Suez Canal, and into the Mediterranean where things take much longer and are more at risk.” He noted that no move of the regime is “benign.” “So whatever data they’re gaining about the maritime domain, from these buoys, or from any other ISR sensor, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensor, whether it’s an aircraft, a submarine, a satellite, a human intelligence person, anything—that will go into the PLA and help them in the missions and tasks that they’ve been given by [Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head Xi Jinping], and previously, by [former CCP head Hu Jintao], which is to be the strongest and biggest military in the earth by 2049,” he said. Displace US The regime’s ultimate goal is to “displace the United States and be the world’s superpower,” he said. According to Fannell, China’s 14th rubber-stamped National People’s Congress shows the totalitarian nature of the regime. “That’s kind of the regime in their nature, and their ideology is to become the greatest power on the earth and to rule the rest of the world the same way they rule their own people, which is to have total control,” he noted. “And we’ve been watching it for the last three years over the dynamic zero COVID policy where no one could move around in their country without permission of the government. And that’s what they want. And we need to be re
Udumbara
China is ramping up intelligence collection efforts against the United States, warns James Fannell, a former director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
In late January, Japanese astronomers stationed in Hawaii noticed mysterious green laser beams that were being fired over the island. The laser beams were being shot down from space over one of the largest mountain ranges in Hawaii.
Initially, when they first reported these beams to the public, these astronomers said that they came from a NASA satellite—they were thought to be American lasers. But just a week after their initial statement, the Japanese astronomers issued a correction saying that these green laser beams were not from a U.S. satellite, but instead, they more likely came from a Chinese satellite.
Fannell said that the beams could be measuring quite a number of things including pollution, “the height, the altitude, the size, the shape, the distances of particular installations in Hawaiian Islands, which happen to have a lot of U.S. military facilities.”
“They could be testing our reactions and responses from the U.S. installations in terms of their ability to detect these green lasers. So they could be watching for a response. They may have somebody’s computers already tapped and looking at what they say when they see the laser, testing our observatories that we have in the Big Island of Hawaii to see what their communications are,” Fannell told the “China in Focus” on NTD.
He believed that it would be a mistake to disregard China’s actions or just assumed them to be related to the environment.
“I think there’s definitely a military aspect to this given the presence that we have there in the islands from the Pacific Missile Range test facility (PMRs.) In Hawaii we’re testing our own nuclear ballistic missiles from Hawaii, to … Pearl Harbor and Camp Smith, Pacific fleet our submarine forces specifically, and even to the Big Island where the U.S. Army and Marine Corps does a lot of training there as well,” he said in an interview on March 14.
“Mapping and using green lasers is another way of measuring our capabilities and our resources,” he added.
“So part of their activity towards us, I think we will see much more as they increase the overt nature of their intelligence collection against the United States,” Fannell noted.
He further pointed to the report on a spent rocket stage from a Chinese launch of a trio of spy satellites burned up over Texas on March 8.
“Given the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts that the PRC has been conducting more and more focused on the United States that we need to be aware of what these are,” he noted, using the official name of the People’s Republic of China.
“Was this just a normal space launch that went awry? Or was this something related to some other kind of grand strategy that the Chinese have to use their military resources to isolate or even attack the United States?” he added.
Seek Access to Artic
Fannell singled out the report on Chinese surveillance buoys discovered in Arctic waters last fall that were intercepted by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).
According to him, these objects would help the communist regime to collect data on the Arctic environment, the sea environment, the sea temperature, the salinity, the currents, and things of that nature.
Fannell believed that the move serves the regime’s effort to “access through the Arctic, to be able to transit ships up there to carry supplies and goods to Europe, from China instead of having to go all the way through the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, Suez Canal, and into the Mediterranean where things take much longer and are more at risk.”
He noted that no move of the regime is “benign.”
“So whatever data they’re gaining about the maritime domain, from these buoys, or from any other ISR sensor, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensor, whether it’s an aircraft, a submarine, a satellite, a human intelligence person, anything—that will go into the PLA and help them in the missions and tasks that they’ve been given by [Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head Xi Jinping], and previously, by [former CCP head Hu Jintao], which is to be the strongest and biggest military in the earth by 2049,” he said.
Displace US
The regime’s ultimate goal is to “displace the United States and be the world’s superpower,” he said.
According to Fannell, China’s 14th rubber-stamped National People’s Congress shows the totalitarian nature of the regime.
“That’s kind of the regime in their nature, and their ideology is to become the greatest power on the earth and to rule the rest of the world the same way they rule their own people, which is to have total control,” he noted.
“And we’ve been watching it for the last three years over the dynamic zero COVID policy where no one could move around in their country without permission of the government. And that’s what they want. And we need to be resisting that because that’s slavery. And we don’t want to live in that,” Fannell said.
Roman Balmakov contributed to this report.
