UK monitors Chinese mission in the UN

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, February 12, 2004

UK monitors Chinese mission in the UN

The UK newspaper The Observer on February 8 revealed a piece of shocking news: The UK intelligence agency, the "Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)", acting on the request of the United States, conducted a large-scale activity of monitoring missions of UN Security Council members including China prior to the start of the Iraq War, with an aim to understand various countries' attitudes toward the Iraq War so as to map out their next move.

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An aim to make clear UN Security Council members' "bottom line" on the Iraq War

According to The Observer report, at the end of January 2003 the US National Security Agency (NSA) forwarded a request to Britain, its confiding ally, expressing the hope that the translators and intelligence analysts with the British government's top-confidential agency, the GCHQ, would cooperate with the NSA agents to conduct "strict monitoring" of specific UN Security Council member mission, so as to get to know their "base line" regarding the Iraq issue and pave the way for the smooth passing of a second UN resolution under US manipulation.

The report said the British government readily responded to the American request, ordering the translators and analysts of the GCHQ to cooperate with a US espionage agency code-named "Surge" in order to grab information on certain UN Security Council member missions for the American NSA, adding that these important pieces of information must be gained before the evening of February 5 last year when US Secretary of State Colin Powell submitted to the Security Council evidence concerning Iraq's violation of a UN resolution.

A few days afterwards, the GCHQ conducted a highly dense and all-directional monitor of the representatives of these specific countries. The most common method was to wiretap the phones in their homes and offices and keep a watch on their emails.

Obviously, the US-British action mentioned above was a serious breach of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which decrees that all spying activities directed at the UN are violations of the international law. After the espionage scandal was exposed, it immediately shocked the international community.

To absolve itself, the British government kept spreading words through various intelligence channels, saying that the so-called secret reconnaissance of UN Security Council member countries was "the arbitrary act by some staff in the intelligence agency, which had nothing to do with the UK government". However, information gathered by The Observer from those who had close relations with the British intelligence agency revealed that GCHQ carried out the espionage upon the order of the UK government.

Chinese language specialists reveal the inside story

The Observer analyzes: The men empowered to approve monitoring UN Security Council member missions may possibly be the director-general of GCHQ, David Pepper and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. According to the two men's instructions, those countries whose stands on the Iraq issue were inconsistent with that of the United States and the United Kingdom, or were unsteady, theses countries, which included Chile, Cameroon, Angola, Guinea and Pakistan, were all put under surveillance.

The Observer report declared that, as a Security Council permanent member, China might be the most important target of the espionage.

The same newspaper report said Katherine Gun, who unveiled the intelligence scandal in March 2003, is a Chinese language expert well versed in Chinese reading, writing, listening and translating. Ms. Gun was hired by the GCHQ. After she leaked the details about US request to Britain for help in reconnaissance, she was dismissed and tried. The police charged her with breaching the Official Secrets Act, as she leaked national security intelligence without authorization.

Gun confessed her behavior but did not regret. She said she intentionally disclosed the piece of intelligence because she wanted to make it impossible for Britain to participate in the war and save ordinary Iraqi people from getting hurt. In her statement she said: No one ordered me to do so, nor did I get any benefit thereof. I was acting on my conscience." She is still facing the investigation by the UK government.

China is the "main target" of intelligence activities

The United Nations has long been known as an "international information and intelligence center". Despite the fact that conducting monitor within the UN is a violation of the international law, but certain countries, proceeding from their political needs, often conduct espionage on other member countries. Among which, permanent Security Council members are "the most important targets".

Secret agents not only conduct espionage within the UN, sometimes they even engage in political assassinations and plot other vicious events. In 1971 when China had just regained its seat in the United Nations, there occurred an unsettled poisoning case in the Chinese office in the UN. Though the Chinese mission heightened security precautions, 26 year-old attach�� Wang Xichang was poisoned to death by a "hostile element" who put highly purified nicotine into a jug. The water bottle was placed in the corridor outside the rooms used by two senior Chinese officials in the UN. It was only a few paces away from their rooms and they all drank water from the said water bottle. The poisoner obviously wanted to kill the two senior Chinese diplomatic officials. Until now the United States has failed to crack this political assassination case.

By People's Daily Online

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