4 - Dr No in Switzerland

Summary

From the 1950s to at least the 1970s, China established and operated a variety of intelligence networks from Switzerland. The chapter relies on thousands of files by the Federal Police as well as Chinese memoirs, biographies, commemorative volumes of former agents, and publications on the history of Chinese intelligence to discuss different forms of intelligence activities carried out by Chinese diplomats in Switzerland. Showing just how intertwined Chinese foreign policy and intelligence were, the chapter argues that diplomatic staff were so often also active as intelligence agents that it could be argued that the Chinese used a hybrid form of diplomat–agent in Switzerland. Some of the national, international, and transnational intelligence networks that the Chinese operated from Switzerland show that Switzerland functioned as a Chinese intelligence hub in Cold War Europe. These include a network of UN officials, ethnic Chinese students and scientists, Chinese restaurants, and Chinese Indonesians. The chapter also describes the Swiss Federal Police’s counterintelligence measures as a reaction to the Chinese intelligence activities. The chapter begins with a discussion of the development of Communist Chinese intelligence in the 1930s and 1940s in order to show how this contributed to Chinese intelligence activities in Europe.