Welcome to this week’s Active Measures.
I gave evidence again to Congress on Friday — not a formal hearing but a briefing organised by Representative Marcy Kaptur and colleagues. Other speakers included Tim Snyder and Ian Brzezinski.
My main message was that the US should make sure that its allies’ bravery is rewarded not punished. Czechs and Lithuanians have been in the forefront of standing up to Chinese bullying in Europe. They need to know that the US has their back. Lithuania’s also been showing stellar leadership over Belarus (and is being punished by the Minsk regime, which ships migrants from the Middle East and dumps them on the Lithuanian border).
My other main point was that Congress should encourage the administration to keep moving on illicit finance (also known as dirty money). Not only with passing legislation and beefing up the ill-run and under-funded FinCEN. but also in chivvying allies. The US has already squeezed on Britain here. Boris Johnson’s government was profoundly uninterested in the subject — but the message from Washington DC is blunt. If Britain wants to come to the new Summit of Democracies, it will have to show progress on dealing with the kleptocrats’ money-laundering.
The obvious place to start is Companies House, which still allows anyone to establish a UK company with bogus names and addresses, and with no fear of criminal prosecution. The (pathetic) excuse for inaction is that the law needs to be changed first. Nonsense. Companies House could simply warn people registering a company that their details would be passed to the police if anything looks suspicious.
Cynthia O’Murchu has a sizzling piece in the FT on this — her home address was used for a company registration by a Russian fraudster and nobody is doing anything about it.
Earlier this week I was on a panel with the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanovskaya and others. I’m still gloomy about Belarus: the Kremlin has the initiative while we fuss around with ineffective sanctions.
I’m particularly worried by the breaking news of the (supposed) attack on the Russian submarine communications station at Vileyka. It’s highly unlikely that any real Belarusian opposition activists would have the skills or the motive to blow up a transmitter (especially one at a well-guarded military site). But it’s the perfect pretext for a further crackdown. I’ve just watched Lukashenka frothing about sleeper cells and ordering the closure of the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. A Russian delegation is apparently visiting.
A reminder: the big loser in the event of a Russian military move into Belarus is Ukraine. Its military is heavily tied up in defending the east. A new threat from the north would be a huge headache.
I’m also thinking about Taiwan a lot. I think the authorities should start a “Centre of Excellence” there, on the lines of the ones in Helsinki (dealing with hybrid threats), Tallinn (cyber) and Riga (strategic communications). It would attract people from all over the world who deal with Chinese political warfare.
What I’ve been reading:
Evan Osnos’s brilliant insight into modern China.
Richard Macgregor’s book (ten years old , but still good) on the Chinese Communist Party.
Lucy Kellaway’s witty and poignant account of how she changed her life.
What I’ve been writing:
A two-page essay in the Times on the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party.
My CEPA column was on the bungled messaging surrounding HMS Defender’s passage past Crimea.
The China Influence Monitor — my weekly take on the party-state’s mischief abroad.
What I’ve been doing:
Talking about the future of espionage for the CFR “Why it Matters” podcast (to be published shortly). The main point: technology makes working under alias almost impossible. I wrote about this in my book “Spycraft Rebooted” which is I think freely downloadable if you have Amazon Prime.
I'll be back in your inboxes next week.
Best regards, Edward
PS A reminder — tips and beefs are welcome. SMS me, Signal or WhatsApp on +447770380791