People often ask me about China’s espionage activity in Hawaii.
Interest in the matter peaked on Sept. 11, when a Honolulu court sentenced long-time Oahu resident, UH Manoa graduate, and former CIA operations officer and FBI Honolulu Field Office translator Alexander Ma to 10 years in prison (with five more years of supervised release and a lifetime requirement to submit to government debriefings and polygraphs) for serving as a mole for China’s Ministry of State Security.
(Ma and I worked for the same CIA office. He is a generation ahead of me, and we never met, but we had mutual acquaintances.)
So, how bad is it? Let’s look at incidents made public in the past few years.
Recent Chinese human intelligence activity here is probably not limited to running spies like Ma. Chinese nationals’ acquisition of land adjacent to U.S. military bases on Oahu and gate-crashers (Chinese nationals claiming to be tourists who “accidentally” wander into or photograph restricted areas) have also become the subject of investigations and appear to be part of a nationwide trend.
Technical collection incidents have also emerged. Analysts assess that the Chinese spy balloon shot down off South Carolina’s coast in February 2023 was originally tasked to collect over Hawaii before being blown off course.
The month prior, China’s Daqi-1 satellite was caught scanning the Big Island with technology that can monitor pollution (as China claims) or perform highly accurate topographical mapping (the type needed for military applications).
In 2018, the U.S. Navy monitored a Chinese signals intelligence ship loitering off our shores, collecting against the movements and communications of the joint international RIMPAC naval exercise.
Covert action operations have also surfaced. In December 2023, a water utility in Hawaii was identified as one of several infrastructure nodes targeted in a People’s Liberation Army cyber operation that was laying the groundwork for future sabotage. In September that year, Beijing launched an agitprop operation online to try to convince locals that a secret U.S. government “weather weapon” sparked the fires in Lahaina.
Let’s not forget industrial espionage. You may recall the publicized warnings about China’s activities in this regard from Assistant General Attorney for National Security John Demers after he met with Hawaii government and military leaders in 2019 as part of a U.S. Department of Justice program, “The China Initiative.”
What to make of all this?
Hawaii is not being singled out. Increasingly aggressive Chinese intelligence operations (and military and diplomatic initiatives) are part of the new normal around the globe.
In the past year, in the U.S. alone, Chinese espionage-, cyber-, and covert influence-ops have been uncovered coast-to-coast, from a penetration of a San Diego military unit to a plant in the New York governor’s office.
China’s influence-buying diplomatic initiatives and strategic investments have gone into high gear from Gabon to Palau. On the military front, Chinese naval and air assets this year, for the first time, joined longstanding Russian probes of Alaska’s airspace and waters, even as they ramped up the frequency and scope of similar activities against Taiwan and became more violent with Philippines Navy vessels in the South China Sea.
Why? Beijing is casting off any semblance of historical East Asian gentility as President Xi tries to, as fast as possible, shore up his autocratic grip on power internally and, externally, solidify a legacy as the new age emperor who rebuilt China’s standing as the Middle Kingdom, the center of all things.
(For the parochial, let me cut you off. No U.S. presidential candidate can undo this, and no U.S. political party is responsible for it. This is bigger than U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy.)
Relatedly, and in closing, Hawaii residents face an uncomfortable reality. Should U.S.-China tensions evolve into conflict, the home of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the U.S. Pacific Fleet will likely play a significant role, including that of target. Recent reports of Chinese military leaders’ study of Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor should give Oahu dwellers pause.
I wish I could deliver more lighthearted news on this matter, but I would have to be dishonest to do so. A hui hou.
J.P. Atwell is a former senior CIA operations officer. His two-decade career began as an intelligence analyst and took him to every continent, save Antarctica. He now calls Hawaii Island home. He welcomes your comments at island.intelligencer@gmail.com.