Blog Series: Reading
Secret Journals of the KGB
Title: On the Unique
Features of the Subversive Activities by the Chinese Intelligence Services against
the Soviet Union from the Territory of Xinjiang
Authors: Colonel G. Ya.
Nikitin & Lt. Colonel A. A. Penkov
Publication: Volume 26,
Papers of the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, Moscow, 1982, pages 269-276.
Classified as Top Secret.
Article Analysis by Filip
Kovacevic, PhD
This article is written
by the head of the Second Main Directorate of the KGB (counterintelligence) in
the Kazakh Soviet Republic, Colonel Nikitin and his deputy, Lt. Colonel Penkov.
They give an overview of the activities of the Chinese intelligence services in
the Kazakh Soviet Republic in the 1970s and early 1980s and discuss a number of
specific cases from their operative practice to illustrate the Chinese
intelligence sources and methods. This article has never been officially
declassified by the Russian government and is analyzed here in English for the
first time.
As we have seen in the
previous analyses of the KGB counterintelligence articles (see Part 1, Part 2, and
Part 3), the proper form of a KGB journal article requires that it begins with
a reference to the conclusions of the most recent Soviet Communist Party
Congress. For Nikitin and Penkov, the most recent is the 26th Party Congress
held in February 1981 during which the Soviet leadership accused China of
making an alliance with the Western powers to sabotage the Soviet Union and the
unity of the Soviet-controlled Socialist bloc. Nikitin and Penkov take this
statement as a starting point and claim that the aggressive Chinese anti-Soviet
plans and geopolitical designs condemned at the Congress are reflected in the increasingly
hostile activities of the Chinese intelligence services. They use the Chinese intelligence activities in the Kazakh Soviet
Republic where they hold the two top positions in the KGB counterintelligence directorate as an illustrative case study.
According to Nikitin and
Penkov, the rising interest of the Chinese intelligence services in the affairs
of the Kazakh Soviet Republic can be observed since the early 1960s. Over the
following two decades, the Chinese intelligence focus has expanded to include
the information regarding the Soviet Kazakh military and border guard
infrastructure, the economic situation and agricultural planning, the domestic
and international political issues, the biographical data, sources, and methods
of the KGB and MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) personnel, and the living
conditions, attitudes, and moods of the Chinese diaspora. Nikitin and Penkov
claim that the launching pad for the Chinese intelligence activities in the
Kazakh Soviet Republic is the neighboring Chinese province of Xinjiang and set
out to discuss these activities in detail and provide concrete examples. They
reveal that their sources and methods include the counterintelligence
activities against the Chinese intelligence officers operating under diplomatic
cover in the Soviet Union, the investigations and interrogations of border
violators and defectors, the KGB active measures, and the KGB agent networks in
the Chinese diaspora.
Nikitin and Penkov
indicate that the favorite method used by the Chinese intelligence services to
infiltrate their agents into the Soviet Union involves illegal border
crossings. They note that the number of the border violators has steadily
increased since the mid-1960s. They put their total number at more than 800
individuals since 1967 and give the exact figures for several years preceding
the publication of their article: 69 violators in 1978, 72 violators in 1979,
89 violators in 1980, and more than 120 violators in 1981. They state that the
violators come from several ethnic groups, including Han Chinese, Uighur, and
Kazakh, and that those who turned up in the early 1980s were typically better
educated and younger than the ones from the previous periods.
Nikitin and Penkov interpret
this trend as a potential deceptive tactic by the Chinese intelligence services
to facilitate the violators’ recruitment by the KGB and their subsequent return
to China on KGB missions. They state that the violators appear to be very
familiar with the Soviet legal system which allows them to remain in the
country after serving a short prison sentence for illegal crossing. According
to Nikitin and Penkov, this legal norm may facilitate the long-term Chinese intelligence
operations within the Soviet Union and the deep cover infiltration of their
agents into the Soviet state institutions, including the military and
intelligence structures.
Nikitin and Penkov assert
that the KGB counterintelligence activities in the Kazakh Soviet Republic in
the period between 1978 and 1980 led to the exposure of more than 10 agents of
the Chinese intelligence services among those who crossed into the Soviet Union
illegally. They also provide several detailed case histories. The first one is
the case of an individual codenamed “Nyui” (born in 1960) who was arrested in
August 1980. After the KGB investigation, which included the information
gathered by an informer placed inside his prison cell, “Nyui” confessed that he
was trained by the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) to offer his
services to the KGB with the expectation of being sent back to China to work on
the KGB behalf, thus comprising its espionage network there.
Another case from the
same false defector category was the individual codenamed “Kin” (born in 1957)
who was arrested the same year. “Kin” was also trained by the MSS but, in
contrast to “Nyui,” was instructed to claim that he was an underground member
of the Eastern Turkestan Revolutionary Party suppressed by the Chinese Maoist
regime in 1969. He was to ask the KGB for the material assistance, including
both money and weapons, to bring back to his alleged comrades hiding in
Xinjiang and getting ready to rise up against the Beijing government.
According to Nikitin and
Penkov, just like the MSS, the Chinese military intelligence service also
trained false defectors. In this respect, they mention the case of an
individual codenamed “Student” (born in 1958). “Student” admitted that he
underwent special training in the Xinjiang Military District headquarters from
May 1977 until September 1978 in order to become a deep cover agent within the
Soviet Union. He was supposed to join the household of his relatives living in
the Kazakh Soviet Republic and wait for a contact from China.
In addition, Nikitin and
Penkov claim that the Chinese military set up small special forces units in the
border areas to kidnap Soviet citizens. They discuss the case of a Kazakh
shepherd (Soviet citizen but born in China in 1932) codenamed “Sputnik” who
vanished in August 1978 while tending his livestock only to re-appear two
months later. During the interrogation by the KGB counterintelligence,
“Sputnik” admitted that he was recruited by the Chinese intelligence services.
He revealed that he was subjected to intense psychological pressure and ordered
to write personal, anti-Soviet statements until he acquiesced to become a spy.
Nikitin and Penkov comment that such methods of “persuasion” have also been
mentioned by other recruited Chinese-born Soviet citizens. They also note that
the Chinese intelligence services often use the fact of these individuals
having been born in China as the main rationale as to why they should assist
them in their subversive activities. Moreover, Nikitin and Penkov state that
the number of recruitment attempts rose in the late 1970s with the increase of Chinese
citizens from Xinjiang visiting their family members in the Kazakh Soviet
Republic and vice versa. However, they do not fail to mention that the Soviet
Kazakh KGB counterintelligence keeps a close eye on the visitors from China
and, no doubt, also tries to recruit them to serve the Soviet cause.
Lastly, Nikitin and
Penkov claim that the Chinese military units from Xinjiang sometimes make
incursions into the Soviet territory to test Soviet defenses. They note that
several shootouts between the Soviet border guards and the Chinese soldiers
occurred during the 1970s, including one in August 1971 when two Chinese
soldiers were shot 17 km away from the border. A Russian-Chinese dictionary was
found among their belongings, which Nikitin and Penkov interpret as a sign that
they planned to collect intelligence by contacting local population. Nikitin
and Penkov also note that the KGB special forces unit found a machine gun
cartridge produced in West Germany in the Alaqol border region in June 1978, the
indication not only of the presence of a Chinese military unit in that region,
but also of the fact that it was armed by the Soviet Western adversaries. Along
the same lines, they state that in 1981 the U.S. government provided China with
spying equipment for the surveillance of Soviet missiles and radio
communication which was positioned along the border in Xinjiang. [The same
information was reported by the New York Times on June 18, 1981].
In conclusion, Nikitin
and Penkov seem to be particularly wary of the ability of the Chinese intelligence
services to recruit many who come into contact with them. They voice a strong
suspicion even of some of their own agents who have returned after completing
intelligence missions in Xinjiang. For instance, they write of the return of
their agent codenamed “Un” in the summer of 1981. “Un” was sent to Xinjiang in
1971 and returned ten years later with three of his relatives. Nikitin and
Penkov state that the KGB investigations show that there is a cause for serious
concern that both “Un” and one of his relatives have been doubled by the
Chinese intelligence.
Thus, in the final
analysis, not only are the Chinese intelligence services increasing the number
of agents they send into the Soviet Union, but they also seem to be successful
in turning some of the KGB’s own. They are, in the words of Nikitin and Penkov,
an adversary both “aggressive and insidious” for whom the KGB
counterintelligence had yet to find an antidote.
