NIQ  Vol.  II,  No.  4 
ON  THE  INTELLIGENCE  EXPLOITATION  OF 
OPEN  SOURCE  CHINESE  DOCUMENTS 
By 
CTI-3  CARL  B.   CRAWLEY,  USNR-R 
(U)  The  normalization  of  rela- 
tions between  the  U.S.  and  the 
Peoples'  Republic  of  China  has 
provided  new  intelligence  collection 
opportunities  in  open-source  Chinese 
language  publications.  Several 
Chinese  military  and  industrial 
publications  are  now  increasingly 
available,  although  most  remain 
untranslated. 
(U)  China  has  been  a  closed 
society  for  most  of  its  long  his- 
tory, and  thus  has  some  unique 
cultural  and  historical  character- 
istics which  analysts  must  take  into 
account.  History  shows  that  in 
China  the  bearer  of  bad  tidings 
to  the  Emporer  traditionally  was 
rewarded  with  death.  This  means 
that  analysts  should  not  be  surpris- 
ed that  Chinese  language  sources 
contain  no   bad  news.      For   example, 
Chinese  reporting  on  their  opera- 
tions on  the  Vietnamese  border  in 
IS 79  confirms  that  the  tendency  to 
dwell  on  the  positive  and  avoid  the 
negative    is    still    operable    today. 
(U)  tti is  disposition  toward  no 
bad  news  manifests  itself  in  open 
source  documents  in  two  basic 
forms,  blatant  hyperbole  and  cau- 
tious conservatism,  and  the  analyst 
must  supply  his  own  objectivity  to 
the  overstatements  and  understate- 
ments which  he  will  often  encounter. 
(U)  The  Chinese  publication, 
Knowledge  of  Ships  provides  a  case 
in  point.  It  offers  a  considerable 
body  of  information  about  naval 
matters,  but  the  quality  and  reli- 
ability of  the  data  are  low.  The 
publication  is  written  on  the  grade 
EHCLQSURE(#
NIQ  Vol.    II,   No.    4 
school  level,  and  often  it  sinply 
reiterates  lessons  learned  in  the 
Second  World  War  and  the  Arab- 
Israeli  conflicts.  Examples  from 
the  Korean  and  Vietnamese  conflicts 
are  notably  absent.  The  blatant 
optimise  in  evidence  when  discussing 
the  future  is,  no  doubt,  intended  to 
inspire  China's  future  generation  of 
leaders,  but  there  is  rarely  any 
evidence    to   support    such   optimism. 
(U)  As  stultifying  as  it  might 
seem,  sifting  through  Knowledge  of 
Ships  is  nevertheless  a  worthwhile 
experience  that  occasionally  un- 
covers useful  information.  In  one 
article,  "The  Role  of  Guided  Missile 
Speedboat  in  an  Engagement,"  for 
example,  the  author  stated  that 
"planners"  are  considering  assigning 
an  antiaircraft  mission  to  one  or 
two  of  the  six*  boats  in  a  typical 
OSA  or  KOMAR  squadron. 
(U)  For  technical  intelligence 
of  naval  interest,  Knowledge  of 
Ships  is  greatly  surpassed  by  the 
Journal  of  Shipbuilding  in  China,  a 
source  which  seems  to  have  been 
published  for  some  time  on  the 
mainland.  It  did  not  become  avail- 
able through  U.S.  State  Department 
sources  until  last  year.  It  ad- 
dresses research  topics  in  marine 
engineering  in  considerable  detail 
but,  more  importantly,  it  demon- 
strates that  the  Chinese  are  active- 
ly exploiting  American,  British, 
Soviet,  Japanese  and  German  work  in 
this  field. 
(U)    The    Journal 
that    test     instruments 
the  Chinese  are  of  German, 
also   reveals 
employed    by 
Japanese 
and  Chinese  manufacture.  The 
Chinese  experiments  generally 
pick  up  where  the  exploited  source 
left  off,  carrying  the  testing  one 
step  further  or  seeking  empirical 
confirmation  of  a  theory  propounded 
by  the  source.  From  the  technical 
intelligence  perspective,  this 
publication  can  be  valuable  in 
providing  new  information  about  the 
marine  engineering  topics  of  in- 
terest to  China,  an  appreciation  of 
the  foreign  sources  being  exploited 
by  the  Chinese,  and  the  results  of 
their  experiments  in  this  field. 
Combined  with  other  intelligence, 
such  open  source  exploitation  offers 
a  reasonably  accurate  assessment  of 
where  China  stands  in  this  area  of- 
technology. 
(U)  Other  open  sources  becoming 
available  from  China  include  a 
publication  entitled  Contemporary 
Military  Affairs.  This  publication 
is  targeted  for  consumption  by 
military  analysts  instead  of  general 
readers.  The  Pacific  and  Indian 
Ocean  theaters  receive  good  cover- 
age, although  there  are  some  obvious 
gaps  in  detail.
(U)  In  short,  the  recent  release 
of  previously  unavailable  publica- 
NIQ  Vol  II,  No.   4 
tions  has  provided  western  analysts 
with  a  new  opportunity  to  study 
Chinese  naval  developments. 
Exploitation  of  these  documents,  in 
combination  with  intelligence 
gleaned  from  other  sources  should 
prove  to  be  both  revealing  and 
informative.