China accuses ‘foreign governments’ of installing fake weather stations to collect data

Original article here.

BEIJING HAS ACCUSED “FOREIGN governments” of collecting data on China through hundreds of fake meteorological stations that have been illegally installed throughout Chinese territory. The announcement appears to form part of a broader “people’s anti-espionage war” that the Communist Party of China launched in 2015 in order to create a “positive atmosphere of national security” across the nation.

On Tuesday of last week, China’s civilian spy agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), shared information about the alleged fake meteorological stations on its WeChat social media account. The agency said it had discovered hundreds of fake stations in over 20 Chinese provinces. The discovery resulted from an investigation of 10 firms that specialize in installing meteorological stations, which was broadened to include a probe of over 3,000 “foreign-linked” meteorological stations across China.

The MSS claims that some of the foreign companies involved in installing meteorological stations had not obtained the required administrative licenses. Furthermore, some of the stations had been placed in the vicinity of food-production hubs or defense-related installations, allegedly in order to record geolocational data. The latter were transmitted abroad in real time, the MSS said.

According to the spy agency, some of the fake meteorological stations were “directly funded by foreign governments”. However, there was no mention in the statement of the specific governments that allegedly funded these stations. Instead, the statement noted that “the illegal collection and cross-border transmission of meteorological data endangers China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests”.

It is rare for the reclusive and secrecy-prone MSS to make any public announcements relating to counter-espionage. In the past year, however, it has announced the arrests of several Chinese officials who allegedly spied on China for the United States Central Intelligence Agency. There is no information about whether the alleged fake meteorological stations are connected to prior arrests of Chinese officials for espionage.