I suspect that is the case, too. Especially this:

> Some officers met their sources at a restaurant where Chinese agents had planted listening devices, former officials said, and even the waiters worked for Chinese intelligence.

I sometimes go to some fancy and downtown restaurants in the Eastern European capital where I live, and you very often can see politicians there and people you very often see on TV as having had problems with the law. I often joke with one of my work-colleagues about how most probably all the restaurant tables in those kind of places are wired. It doesn't help that the most fancy party place in the city is partially owned by the daughter of a the director of the Security Services back in the 1990s. All these places are also filled with foreign businessmen and I suspect there are also people working for foreign embassies.

While I used to live and eat out in the poorer parts of the city I never, never saw what looked to be foreign persons eating at those restaurants. They are all gravitating around the same area in downtown city. I suspect a very similar thing is happening in China and in other countries' capitals around the world. Most of the Western diplomats who are also carrying intelligence activity on the side don't seem very capable of just blending in in a foreign environment.