The Chinese government is calling attention to new methods of spying on China. Whether its ideas are altogether quite practical is another question. If they’re not viable today, they probably will be tomorrow.
On WeChat, the PRC’s Ministry of State Security has aired “bizarre claims” that foreign powers are conducting espionage via aquatic life (New York Post, June 13, 2026).
Turtles, fish and other marine creatures have been outfitted with sensors and sent swimming through sensitive areas, collecting oceanographic data before beaming it to overseas satellites, according to the department.
Foreign powers are alleging using the sea to create “underwater maps” of its coastline as part of an “invisible secret war,” the MSS claims.
The department also said it has recovered surveillance buoys fitted with meteorological and high-precision listening sensors, as well as solar-powered wave gliders—that were capable of capturing real-time port activity and feeding information into a vast “maritime surveillance network.”
“Sensitive data such as ocean current dynamics, water temperature characteristics, temperature distribution, and seabed topography, if stolen by foreign intelligence agencies, will seriously endanger China’s national security, military security, and economic security,” the post warned.
It then goes on to urge researchers, boat owners and fishermen to keep their eyes peeled for anything that looks fishy.
Ouch. Fishy? You had to do it, eh New York Post?
The ministry’s warnings may sound whackier than they are. Properly equipped buoys are plausible as a means of surveillance, and the Discover Wild Science site notes that “recent advancements in technology have paved the way for a more rigorous and detailed understanding of how animals interact with their environment.” Robots and sensors have made studies of animal behavior “more precise, repeatable, and scalable.”
Invisible net
The Chinese government has been doing a fair amount of aquatic espionage itself. Maybe it hasn’t yet enlisted turtles. But Defense One reported last year that the People’s Liberation Army is working to cast “an ‘invisible net’ across the western Pacific, a five-layer, seabed-to-space sensor architecture known as the Transparent Ocean strategy that challenges the ability of U.S. and allied submarines…to maneuver and hide.”
During joint military exercises in August, the Chinese and Russians reportedly “linked their communications and shared hydro-meteorological and air-sea tracks in real time. The goal, according to Chinese state media, was to leave deep-diving submarines with nowhere to hide.” This was an “early demonstration of a mature, automated kill web that China plans to spread across multiple seas and oceans….”
Still a work in progress. (“Reliability remains the bottleneck in contested waters.”) But to the extent that the project is realized and is insufficiently foiled by Western efforts, it would be a more formidable threat than any standard regiment of turtle operatives.
Also see:
The Diplomat: “Chinese Buoy Placed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone Removed” (March 3, 2025)
“The buoy was an example of repeated Chinese incursions into Japan’s EEZ…. With a height and diameter of approximately 10 meters, it bore the designation China Ocean Observation Buoy QF212 on its surface, and is believed to have been transmitting data such as water temperature and ocean currents via satellite communications…. [Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi Yoshimasa said that] buoys placed in water around Yonaguni Island and in Japan’s EEZ south of Yonaguni Island in Okinawa Prefecture remained in place.”
