WASHINGTON (AP) -- China spies on the United States more
aggressively than does any other nation, and U.S. counterespionage
agencies are ill-prepared to cope with it, according to a new book
by a Defense Intelligence Agency officer.
        Nick Eftimiades, a China specialist and counterintelligence
analyst at the DIA, blames an ``unseen, unspoken'' but real and
deliberate reluctance among U.S. political leaders in recent years
to get tough with China on espionage.
        ``People don't want to bang on China,'' he said in an interview
this week.
        In his book, ``Chinese Intelligence Operations,'' Eftimiades
specifically cited the Bush administration's efforts to improve
political relations with Beijing as an ``impediment to effective
action against'' China's espionage.
        Robert Gates, director of the CIA during the Bush
administration, said in an interview it was nonsense to suggest
that counterspy efforts were hurt by President Bush's overtures to
Beijing. But he agreed that China's spying activities have
``probably stepped up'' and ``become more sophisticated.''
        The book's publication comes at a politically sensitive time in
U.S.-Chinese relations, as President Clinton prepares to decide by
next week whether to revoke most-favored nation trade privileges as
punishment for Beijing's reported human rights abuses.
        Eftimiades stressed that his book was not meant as a call to
arms against a threat to Western democracy; indeed, he notes that
China's intelligence operations historically have suffered from
sloppiness, poor planning and weak execution. Even so, he says, the
sheer volume of operations ensures some will succeed.
        ``There is no question that their espionage activities are more
pervasive than what we have seen from any other country,''
Eftimiades said in the interview.
        Yet when people think of foreign spying in the United States
they think of Soviet ``moles'' such as Aldrich Ames, a CIA officer
who pleaded guilty last month to selling state secrets to Moscow
for nine years and was sentenced to life in prison.
        They don't think of Larry Chin Wu-tai. He was a CIA analyst who
passed national secrets to Beijing for 35 years before retiring in
1981. Four years after retirement, Chin was indicted on spying
charges and was later convicted.
        Eftimiades has spent 10 years in the intelligence business,
first at the CIA and the State Department and now at DIA, where he
helps assess damage caused by spying against America, including the
Ames case.
        It is unusual for an active U.S. intelligence official to write
a book on spying, and Eftimiades' experience in getting his
published shows some of the reasons why.
        The least of his problems was having the manuscript reviewed by
the government to ensure no secrets were disclosed. The real
trouble came from fellow DIA workers, some of whom were angered
that he did not share with DIA his interviews with Chinese
intelligence officers.
        While some DIA officials protested to his superiors, Eftimiades
said, the agency never challenged his right to publish the book,
which he researched and wrote on his own time.
        He says the American government, including its
counterintelligence agencies, practically ignored China's spying
during the Cold War because the Soviet Union was seen as a more
dangerous and immediate threat.
        Yet even now, after the demise of the Soviet empire, Washington
pays relatively little attention to China's aggressive espionage
and is sorely lacking in the linguistic and other skills required
to combat it, Eftimiades says.
        ``The United States and other Western industrialized nations are
woefully unprepared'' to counteract China's spying, Eftimiades
wrote.
        Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA officer who was director of
intelligence programs at the National Security Council in 1984-87,
said in an interview that he agreed U.S. capabilities to neutralize
Chinese spying were lacking at a time when Beijing is ``engaged in
espionage against us in a serious way.''
        China's intelligence apparatus draws on the services of not only
the 11,500 diplomats, trade representatives and other Chinese
visitors here, but also the 15,000 Chinese students who arrive on
U.S. campuses each year and hundreds of thousands of Chinese
Americans around the country, Eftimiades wrote.
        One of China's favorite methods is to ``plant'' long-term agents
in the United States who are trained to remain inactive for 10
years or more, until they have sunk deep roots into a U.S.
corporation, institution or government agency. These are known in
Chinese spy agency slang as ``fish at the bottom of the ocean.''
        Eftimiades said China's top intelligence-gathering priorities in
the United States are advanced U.S. technology for military use;
identifying foreign policy trends, including trade; and
counteracting Chinese dissident groups.
        The FBI, which has primary responsibility for
counterintelligence within U.S. borders, the CIA and the Chinese
Embassy declined to comment on the book.