WASHINGTON — The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

Still others were put in jail. All told, the Chinese killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 of the C.I.A.’s sources in China, according to two former senior American officials, effectively unraveling a network that had taken years to build.</s>China killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012, hobbling U.S. spying operations in a massive intelligence breach whose origin has not been identified, the New York Times reported on Saturday. Investigators remain divided over whether there was a spy within the Central Intelligence Agency who betrayed the sources or whether the Chinese hacked the CIA's covert communications system, the newspaper reported, citing current and former U.S. officials.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Reuters.</s>A security agent stands guard near the Great Hall of the People as the sun appears through smog ahead of the closing ceremony of China's National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China, March 16, 2016. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

China killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012, hobbling U.S. spying operations in a massive intelligence breach whose origin has not been identified, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

Investigators remain divided over whether there was a spy within the Central Intelligence Agency who betrayed the sources or whether the Chinese hacked the CIA’s covert communications system, the newspaper reported, citing current and former U.S. officials.

The Chinese killed at least a dozen people providing information to the CIA from 2010 through 2012, dismantling a network that was years in the making, the newspaper reported.

One was shot and killed in front of a government building in China, three officials told the Times, saying that was designed as a message to others about working with Washington.

The breach was considered particularly damaging, with the number of assets lost rivaling those in the Soviet Union and Russia who perished after information passed to Moscow by spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the report said. Ames was active as a spy in the 1980s and Hanssen from 1979 to 2001.

The CIA declined to comment when asked about the Times report on Saturday.

The Chinese activities began to emerge in 2010, when the American spy agency had been getting high quality information about the Chinese government from sources deep inside the bureaucracy, including Chinese upset by the Beijing government’s corruption, four former officials told the Times.

The information began to dry up by the end of the year and the sources began disappearing in early 2011, the report said.

As more sources were killed the FBI and the CIA began a joint investigation of the breach, examining all operations run in Beijing and every employee of the U.S. Embassy there.

The investigation ultimately centered on a former CIA operative who worked in a division overseeing China, the newspaper said, but there was not enough evidence to arrest him.

Some investigators believed the Chinese had hacked the CIA’s covert communications system.

Still others thought the breach was a result of careless spy work including traveling the same routes to the same meeting points or meeting sources at restaurants where Chinese had planted listening devices, the newspaper said.

By 2013, U.S. intelligence concluded China’s ability to identify its agents had been curtailed, the newspaper said, and the CIA has been trying to rebuild its spy network there.</s>Chinese authorities dealt a major blow to US intelligence gathering efforts by killing or imprisoning up to 20 CIA sources. (Getty Images)

Chinese authorities murdered or imprisoned as many as 20 CIA sources in a massive breach which damaged US intelligence gathering in China.

China killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012, hobbling American spying operations in a massive intelligence breach whose origin has not been identified, the New York Times has reported.

Investigators remain divided over whether there was a spy within the Central Intelligence Agency who betrayed the sources or whether the Chinese hacked the CIA's covert communications system, the newspaper reported, citing current and former US officials.

The Chinese killed at least a dozen people providing information to the CIA from 2010 through 2012, dismantling a network that was years in the making, the newspaper reported.

One was shot and killed in front of a government building in China, three officials told the Times, saying that was designed as a message to others about working with Washington.

The breach was considered particularly damaging, with the number of assets lost rivalling those in the Soviet Union and Russia who perished after information passed to Moscow by spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the report said.

Ames was active as a spy in the 1980s and Hanssen from 1979 to 2001.

The CIA declined to comment when asked about the Times report on Saturday.

The Chinese activities began to emerge in 2010, when the American spy agency had been getting high quality information about the Chinese government from sources deep inside the bureaucracy, including Chinese upset by the Beijing government's corruption, four former officials told the Times.

The information began to dry up by the end of the year and the sources began disappearing in early 2011, the report said.

As more sources were killed the FBI and the CIA began a joint investigation of the breach, examining all operations run in Beijing and every employee of the US Embassy there.

The investigation ultimately centred on a former CIA operative who worked in a division overseeing China, the newspaper said, but there was not enough evidence to arrest him.

Some investigators believed the Chinese had hacked the CIA's covert communications system.

Still others thought the breach was a result of careless spy work including traveling the same routes to the same meeting points or meeting sources at restaurants where Chinese had planted listening devices, the newspaper said.

By 2013, US intelligence concluded China's ability to identify its agents had been curtailed, the newspaper said, and the CIA has been trying to rebuild its spy network there.</s>From the last few weeks of 2010 to the end of 2012, China killed or imprisoned up to 20 sources cultivated by the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States's premier spy agency, a New York Times report said.

The US daily spoke ten current and former unnamed American officials to reveal how the Chinese systematically destroyed what had become the CIA's most productive spying operation in China. According to the report, the Chinese counter-intelligence killed at least a dozen of the CIA's sources.

One source, three American officials reportedly said, was shot dead in front of his colleagues at a government building in China. The act was likely meant to serve as a message to others who may have been working for the CIA.

According to the NYT report, by 2010, the CIA had managed to build a vast network of spies in China, cultivating sources within the bureaucracy in Beijing. Some of the sources were Chinese nationals who the CIA believed had become disenchanted with government corruption in China.

By 2010, thanks to the CIA's intelligence operation, the Americans were receiving some of the best intelligence they had gathered in years in China, a top priority for the agency. However, by early 2011, the intelligence started drying up and American officials soon started to realise that some of their Chinese sources were starting to disappear.

This set off alarm bells in the US, prompting the CIA and the Federal Investigation Agency to begin an investigation. Working out a secret facility in US, the probe looked into each and every aspect of the CIA's China operation. Nearly all officials at the United States embassy in China were probed, NYT reported.

The investigation started taking more urgency as more CIA sources started disappearing in China. By 2013, the joint CIA-FBI probe concluded that China had been successful in crippling the US's intelligence operation in China.

Notably, NYT reports that the probe failed to discover exactly what happened. The investigators considered the possibility of a CIA insider had leaked information to the Chinese. The probe even narrowed down upon a possible suspect.

However, other officials rejected the mole theory and instead believed that US operatives had become sloppy with their spy tradecraft, using the same routes to travel and meeting sources at the same locations, making it easier for Chinese counter-intelligence to identify American spies' movements.

According to the NYT, the probe also found how Chinese counter-intelligence bugged restaurants where US operatives met their sources and even infiltrated the meeting spots with waiters who were actually spies.

Another theory was that the Chinese had been able to crack the cover method the Central Intelligence Agency used to communicate with its sources.

The CIA-FBI investigation, however, did not reach upon a final theory. The CIA has tried to rebuild its China operation, but it is a money and time consuming effort, the NYT report notes.

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ALSO WATCH | Trump says China could have hacked Democratic emails during US presidential polls</s>ATLANTA – Telling someone a secret is an act of faith. Sharing intelligence with an ally is no different. By disclosing intelligence provided by a US ally to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in an Oval Office meeting last week, President Donald Trump indicated that he cannot safely be trusted – and caused profound damage to US national security.

Every intelligence relationship has its rules and regulations. But, while written agreements are often part of the protocol, intelligence sharing isn’t based on any fine print. Rather, it rests on mutual confidence built over years, including by protecting secrets each side acquires through hard and often dangerous work.

Trust between intelligence services is a perishable commodity; indeed, there is an implicit threat that a betrayal, or even a mistaken disclosure, can sever the relationship then and there. Last week, Trump risked precisely that, as he demonstrated to intelligence services around the world that he hasn’t got a clue what trust means.

The most important facts about Trump’s revelations to his Russian visitors no longer appear in dispute. Major news organizations have tapped multiple sources to report a presidential soliloquy that described, among other things, new and innovative plans by the Islamic State to use laptop computers and undetectable explosives to bring down commercial airliners. Details Trump provided to the Russians included the plot’s location and the damage the devices could wreak – facts that had reportedly been denied to America’s European allies so far, because of the sensitive sources involved.

Trump asserts that he was acting well within his authority, because US presidents can declassify almost anything they want. General H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, has affirmed that Trump revealed nothing to the Russians about the “sources and methods” used to acquire the intelligence discussed. More information about the discussions will undoubtedly emerge.

But whatever new details are revealed will not change the fact that what Trump did is history. And that history will have an impact on the US intelligence community – and American interests abroad – in the future.

For America’s director of national intelligence, Dan Coates, and for the heads of its 16 intelligence agencies, the question is obvious: Will the president protect the country’s most sensitive information? The question turns their relationship with the US president – service to whom has always been their top priority – on its head.

Consider the president’s daily brief. Created in the 1960s by the Central Intelligence Agency, the PDB, as it is known, provides the president each morning with the intelligence community’s analysis and raw reporting from its most sensitive sources. It is tailored to each Oval Office occupant. What can the agencies that run intelligence collection operations – including protecting multibillion-dollar technical systems and vulnerable human sources – now put on Trump’s desk?

The question is no less pressing for US intelligence partners abroad. No intelligence service can survive – much less succeed – by operating alone, and making connections with the US, in particular, is vital. America’s intelligence ties extend from intimate collaboration with World War II partners, NATO members, and Asian allies to politically sensitive and therefore less publicized cooperation elsewhere in the world.

Of course, the risks associated with countries’ US connections vary widely. Leaks, data dumps, and other disclosures – such as those by Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden – have exposed a variety of intelligence relationships and sensitive information. They have embarrassed some political leaders, unsettled others, and, in several cases, roiled relations with the US.

At this point, there is no way to tell how Trump’s Russian revelations will be assessed by intelligence leaders abroad, including whether it will affect their willingness to share intelligence with US counterparts. But, given past revelations, the potential for fallout must be considered. It would be naive to believe that Trump’s show-and-tell hasn’t already prompted its share of risk assessments in capitals around the world, including cost-benefit analyses of the provision of sensitive intelligence to US partners.

Whatever the outcome of those analyses, it is clear that Trump has done no favors for US intelligence officers around the world. Many of them hold jobs that focus on building person-to-person relationships with professional counterparts who have a responsibility to protect their services’ hard-won information and sources. While those counterparts’ personal attitudes may not change, it’s a safe bet that their chain of command will think twice about authorizing the release of sensitive intelligence that could wind up in White House in-boxes, particularly if that intelligence includes insights into what the Kremlin is up to.

Even if interest in Trump’s latest indiscretion fades, his relationship – and the relationships of his associates – with Russia remains a subject of much interest, underscored by the appointment of a special counsel to investigate those links. Given this, the Trump administration’s response to the Kremlin’s increasingly assertive behavior in what was once the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence – from Eastern Europe to the Baltics – will also be watched carefully in the coming months.

News headlines are unlikely to reveal the damage that Trump has done to America’s intelligence-sharing relationships by his failure to grasp his responsibility to protect information vital to national security. Like painstakingly collected sensitive intelligence, evidence of that damage will accumulate only gradually, as friends and allies keep their counsel – and their insights – to themselves. The US may have long been a critical intelligence partner. But, with Trump in charge, sharing intelligence with the US may look more like an unnecessary – if not unaffordable – risk.</s>18 to 20 CIA sources were either killed or imprisoned, former American officials. (Representational)</s>The Chinese government killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 informants working with the CIA between 2010 and 2012, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing two former senior U.S. officials who remained unnamed. The CIA declined to comment for the Times story.

Five years later, it is still not certain how the sources were identified, only that their grim fates significantly crippled American intelligence efforts in China. Some in the intelligence community suspect a mole, the Times reported, while others believe Chinese hackers could have breached CIA systems.

The ambiguity is "really troubling," Times journalist Matt Apuzzo told the BBC, but whatever the breach was, it seems to have ended by 2013. "For many years China and the U.S. have been locked in this spy battle that's been going on behind the scenes," Apuzzo added. "It goes back and forth." Bonnie Kristian</s>Both the CIA and the FBI declined to comment on reports saying the Chinese government killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012 and dismantled the agency’s spying operations in the country. It is described as one of the worst intelligence breach in decades, current and former American officials told the New…</s>China systematically dismantled CIA spying efforts in the country from 2010, killing or jailing more than a dozen covert sources, in a deep setback to US intelligence there, according to a report by The New York Times.

The Times, quoting 10 current and former US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades.

The report, released on Sunday, said that even now intelligence officials were unsure whether the US was betrayed by a mole within the CIA or whether the Chinese hacked a covert system used by the CIA to communicate with foreign sources.

Of the damage inflicted on what had been one of the most productive US spy networks, there was no doubt that at least a dozen CIA sources were killed between late 2010 and the end of 2012, it said.

"One was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building - a message to others who might have been working for the CIA," the report said.

In all, 18 to 20 CIA sources in China were either killed or imprisoned, according to two former senior American officials quoted.

The breach was considered particularly damaging, with the number of assets lost rivaling those in the Soviet Union and Russia who perished after information passed to Moscow by spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the report said.

The CIA's mole hunt in China, following the severe losses to its network there, was intense and urgent. Nearly every employee of the US Embassy in Beijing was scrutinised at one point, the newspaper said.

The Chinese activities began to emerge in 2010, when the American spy agency had been getting high quality information about the Chinese government from sources deep inside the bureaucracy, including Chinese upset by the Beijing government's corruption, four former officials told the Times.

The information began to dry up by the end of the year and the sources began disappearing in early 2011, the report said.

As more sources were killed, the FBI and the CIA began a joint investigation of the breach, examining all operations run in Beijing and every employee of the US Embassy there.
Former United States officials report that 18–20 Central Intelligence Agency sources were killed or imprisoned by the Government of China between 2010 and 2012, which significantly hampered the United States Intelligence Community.