The Chinese Honeypot Problem

The U.S. government recently banned American personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens. The policy was put into effect by the departing ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The danger of a honeypot scheme, romantically entrapping a diplomat to coerce him into giving up some of America’s secrets, is apparently too high to allow for sexual shenanigans.

A more limited version of the policy was enacted last summer prohibiting U.S. personnel from romantic and sexual relations with Chinese citizens working as local support staff at the U.S. Embassy and consulates in China, including Hong Kong. But Burns broadened it to a blanket ban after concerns were expressed by Congress. The only exception is personnel with pre-existing relationships, who can apply for exemptions.

The new directive mandates anyone with an existing Chinese partner seek an exemption, end the relationship, or leave their post if the exemption is denied. Anyone caught violating policy, say by trying to hide a relationship, will be ordered out of China immediately with all the career consequences you’d expect. Until the ban in January, U.S. personnel in China were required only to report any intimate contact with Chinese citizens to the Embassy’s Regional Security Office, but were not explicitly forbidden from sexual or romantic relationships. The new ban applies only to American diplomats stationed in China and their relationships with locals; diplomats outside of China who enter into romantic relationships with Chinese nationals face other, less stringent, reporting requirements and prohibitions.

Why all the fuss? Because China is considered the top country globally for honeypot schemes. One former Canadian diplomat characterized the situation as “countries have been using sex to gather intel for over 1,000 years, and it hasn’t slowed a bit. Many countries are still carrying on sexpionage, and the number one country is China.” Peter Mattis, a former CIA analyst, said there were at least two publicized cases in which Chinese agents seduced American diplomats in China: “This new rule change suggests the [Chinese] have gotten a lot more aggressive at trying to access the embassy and U.S. government.” Chinese law requires citizens to cooperate with the intelligence services, so even if a Chinese girlfriend is not a spy herself, she may be required to introduce her diplomatic boyfriend to an “uncle” who is.

The UK’s MI5 saw honeytraps as such a concern that it prepared a 14-page document and distributed it to hundreds of British banks, businesses, and financial institutions. Titled “The Threat from Chinese Espionage,” the document described a wide-ranging Chinese effort to blackmail Western businessmen over sexual relationships.

Diplomats and others being forbidden to have romantic or sexual relationships with local nationals abroad is nothing particularly new, albeit new in its present form for China. Such prohibitions were very much a part of the Cold War, and were especially strict within the Soviet Bloc countries, for the same reasons as in modern China. In other countries the relationships may be allowed, as well as regular non-sexual friendships, although the reporting of them is part of a system designed to weed out spies. The exact list of such countries is classified, but we can guess it includes places like North Korea and Cuba, and not countries like Sweden or the UK. The most recently declassified list of such countries dates back to the Cold War, 1987.

That 1987 document also lays out the rules for all contact reporting with designated foreign country nationals, and includes an almost apologetic rationale sure to assuage separated lovers in Beijing:

It is an unfortunate fact of life that targeting and exploitation by foreign intelligence services are occupational hazards for the employees of all foreign affairs agencies because of their job functions and access to classified information. The Department does not wish to intrude into the private lives of its employees. Nonetheless, all contacts with foreign nationals must be considered in the context of your position as an official of the U.S. government and not as a private citizen—that is how the foreign national will perceive you.

But don’t get too comfortable here at home, either, in intimate contacts with foreign nationals. Intelligence experts are becoming increasingly convinced six high-end brothels busted last year in the suburbs of Boston and Washington, D.C. were set up by a foreign nation—possibly China—as an espionage honeytrap. The brothels targeted politicians, high-ranking government officials, and defense contractors in the Cambridge and Tysons Corner areas. Members of Congress, military officers, and national security contractors who possessed security clearances were among the steady customers, prosecutors say. Clients, who paid up to $600 an hour, also included corporate executives, professors, lawyers, and scientists.

The concept of the honeypot in espionage has a long and salacious history. It’s one of the most classic tools in the spycraft playbook, blending psychological manipulation, seduction, and human weakness to achieve intelligence goals. Use of the technique can be traced to the Greeks and Romans, with dramatic cases strewn throughout the Cold War era: William Kampiles, a CIA clerk, who was seduced by a woman linked to the KGB, leading him to sell the KH-11 spy satellite manual to the Soviets in the 1970s, and U.S. Marine Clayton Lonetree, whose 1980s relationship with a KGB operative lead Russian spies to direct access into the American Embassy in Moscow.

Honeypots remain relevant, especially with digital extensions (catfishing, sextortion) and extensions into cyberspace—fake profiles on dating apps or social media lure targets into sharing personal or even classified information. New battlegrounds emerge regularly, to include LinkedIn, where faux job interest for techies escalates to paid trips to China, where human intel ops and honeypots take over. (And don’t think for a minute the good guys don’t use the same tricks as the bad guys in the Great Game.)

The goal with the changes in allowed relationships in Mission China is to lessen the chances that it all won’t happen again. Those changes in cutting off physical relationships will no doubt be accompanied by digital seduction awareness training for diplomats, military officers, and others who travel or deal with sensitive data. It’s essentially an attempt to “honeypot-proof” things for the 21st century. Will it all happen again anyway? Given human weakness and the matchup of biology versus tradecraft, despite best efforts, it most certainly will.

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