B.RAMAN
According to a report carried by “The Hindu” of
April 4,2013, “ the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), a Government-run
research university known for its work on China’s space programme, signed on
April 3 a first of its kind Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Karnataka-based
Manipal University paving the way for closer collaboration on joint research
projects.”
2.The report adds that the Manipal Universirty will
sign on April 5 an MOU with BIT’s sister
university, the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in
southern Jiangsu province.
3. The report also says: “Both universities have
ties to China’s space programme and also run research and development
programmes related to defence projects.”
4. For China, research and espionage are synonymous
.Chinese universities and nuclear and space research establishments often
provide academic cover to their intelligence officers for the collection of
intelligence.
5.A Chinese university in Shanghai allegedly
collaborates with China’s offensive cyber intelligence set-up to enable the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) develop a capability for infiltrating foreign
cyber networks.
6. Strengthening counter-intelligence capabilities
against China is a priority task for Western intelligence agencies and
particularly for the US intelligence community. Since the Chinese intelligence
techniques for the collection of nuclear and space related intelligence from
the US came to notice during the Clinton Administration, the US Government has
considerably strengthened its counter-intelligence capability against China. This
subject is constantly under review by the Congressional Intelligence Oversight
Committees. The US intelligence agencies are cautious in vetting and cleating
academic exchange programmes with Chinese academic institutions which are
suspected to act as Trojan Horses for the Chinese intelligence.
7.Our intelligence and counter-intelligence
capabilities relating to China are weak. After the 1962 war, we found that
China had more intelligence about us than we had about China. Since then steps
have been taken to improve our capabilities for counter-intelligence against
China. There are still deficiencies.
8. For the Chinese intelligence agencies, among priority
targets in their briefs for intelligence collection in India are our space establishments
in and around Bengaluru and our space
launching sites on the East coast. Another penetration target for them is the
Indo-Russian Brahmo project.
9. The presence of Chinese space experts in
Manipal will enable the Chinese to use Manipal
as a base for putting in place an intelligence collection network under the
cover of an academic exchange programmne.
10. When asked about the security aspects of the
programme, Shri M.D.Nalapat, Honorary Director of the Department of Geopolitics
of the Manipal University, has stated as follows: “ It makes no sense for us to
avoid dealing with China when every other country in the world is embracing
China---even the US and the EU, where universities are having far more in-depth
engagement than what we are proposing.”
11. It is a simplistic argument which can prove
counter-productive. No one can object to in-depth exchanges with Chinese
institutions in fields like humanities, special areas like energy conservation,
pollution control, disaster management etc. But before engaging in exchanges in
very sensitive fields like nuclear and space research, we have to be certain
that we have the required counter-intelligence capability to prevent the Chinese
from misusing the exchanges for intelligence collection and sabotage like injecting
computer viruses into the computer networks of our nuclear and space
establishments. We had seen what happened in Iran.
12. The Manipal University’s initiative needs close
scrutiny from the Counter-Intelligence angle before it is cleared by our
intelligence community. (4-4-13)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt lof India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For
China Studies. Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )
