Spymaster | China
Li Wei, Xi's intelligence gathering champion

Bangladesh, China, India
Beijing strengthens military footprint on Indian border with Bangladesh's help

Five months of closed-door negotiations have enabled the Chinese Communist Party to take advantage of the Teesta River dredging Memorandum of Understanding to gain a major military upper hand on the Chinese-Indian border near Sikkim.

The Agencies' Gazette
NASA/Roscosmos, DGSE, Beijing's central military committee

Appointments, reforms and key issues: every Monday, Intelligence Online serves up snippets big and small from the global intelligence community. This week, we bring you news from the US, Russia, France and China.

United States/Russia Roscosmos to provide security to NASA officers

France Senators see through DGSE recruitment numbers

China Security bodies directly answerable to Xi Jinping

China
Xi Jinping allows some space for 'pacifist' Politburo members

Three rising stars of the Chinese administration, Wang Huning, Li Qiang and Ding Xuexiang have been given space to voice new opinions within the Politburo Standing Committee, with President Xi's consent.

China
Shanghai clique gathers intelligentsia around Xi

Coordinated by Politburo Standing Committee members Wang Huning and Ding Xuexiang, the new Shanghai faction is trying to extinguish the influence of Jiang Zemin's protégés from the world of academia and the military.

China
'Shaanxi Gang' on the rise during Xi's third term

From anti-corruption campaigns to the Central Military Commission, more and more strategic Chinese Communist Party positions are being filled by members who hail from or forged their political career in the president's home province of Shaanxi.

China
Xi Jinping to bring PLA political commissars to heel

In his third term, China's president wants to consolidate his hold over his country's military apparatus. To regain control over the politics of the People's Liberation Army, Xi has chosen to drastically rein in political commissars, who have now been relegated to merely executing the party's will.

Spotlight | China
Inspired by Russia's mistakes, Beijing fine-tunes its military strategy on Taiwan

The Chinese president convened the Central Military Commission last month to discuss Taiwan and the new direction its military strategy should take on the island, and particularly on its eastern flank, in the light of Russian setbacks in Ukraine.

China
China sets up a cyber-Hogwarts to train its future cyber defence wizards

The Chinese government wants to have at its disposal cyber specialists other than those from the hacking world that forged its existing cyber services. To help it achieve this, it has enlisted the help of the big high-tech groups but is also carrying out major development programmes at its universities - and this in collaboration with foreign establishments of the highest reputation.