Special to WorldTribune, August 28, 2026 Real World News
Geostrategy-Direct, August 25, 2026
Utilizing both sophisticated cyber warfare and boots-on-the-ground intelligence gathering, communist China’s military intelligence arm is conducting aggressive spying operations against U.S. and South Korean military and commercial targets in South Korea, according to a new report.
Retired Defense Intelligence Agency official Nicholas Eftimiades, a specialist on Chinese intelligence, stated in an online report that the Joint Intelligence Bureau, the spying arm of the People’s Liberation Army Central Military Commission, is waging a highly coordinated espionage operation in South Korea.
“China is executing a whole-of-society approach using scholars, students and business persons to support intelligence collection operations against U.S. and South Korean military targets and South Korea’s strategic semiconductor industry,” Eftimiades told The Washington Times regarding his report.
In the past year, at least six cases of Chinese espionage in South Korea were uncovered, Eftimiades reported.
The report details PLA intelligence recruitment tactics, logistical timelines, and specialized spy methods used by a Chinese academic-turned-operative who infiltrated South Korean defense circles before he was arrested.
The academic was identified by South Korean authorities as a university professor named “Qing” who was convicted of violating military secrets laws while working under the direction of “Ken Jake,” the code name for a PLA spy unit. The unit was named after a pseudonym used on social media to target South Korean troops.
Qing and his handlers systematically recruited South Korean troops to obtain critical military secrets, including details on the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system, joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise plans and information on Taiwan, the report said.
“The conspiracy utilized sophisticated digital cover identities, encrypted communications, and physical dead drops on Jeju Island before it was compromised by an undercover counterintelligence operation,” the report said.
According to the report, Qing is from Shandong Province, China, studied in Taiwan and then South Korea, where he went to work at a university that was not identified by name.
His work as a Chinese military intelligence agent involved courier work and intelligence tasks.
Qing was recruited while in Taiwan from 2018 to 2022 by a PLA operative named Liu Nannan and was tasked with collecting intelligence on an unspecified Taiwanese female politician, the report said.
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Report: PLA intel unit coordinating espionage probes of military targets in South Korea added by Editor Two on
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