A former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has been charged for acting as an unregistered agent for China .
Linda Sun and her husband are accused by the Justice Department of promoting the Chinese Communist Party's agenda on key concerns such as isolating Taiwan , underplaying the Uyghur genocide, and promoting positive attitudes toward Beijing. In return for her service, Sun received millions of dollars from China. These funds allowed Sun to purchase luxuries, including a Hawaii penthouse and a Ferrari. It's concerning that a Chinese agent had tentacles into the highest levels of New York politics.
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to China's illicit influence campaigns against the United States. Other recent examples of successful Chinese influence operations include the saga of Fang Fang, a Chinese honeytrap agent who targeted Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and the still unnamed spy inside the office of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
It's clear that China's espionage and influence operations targeting America are vast in scale. FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in 2020 that the bureau was investigating Chinese espionage efforts in "all 56 of our field offices. And over the past decade, we've seen economic espionage cases with a link to China increase by approximately 1,300%." That caseload has not declined since 2020. China's influence efforts extend to the state and local levels, seeking to forge early links with the next generation of political stars. This concern underlines why Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) deserves greater media scrutiny over his long-term relationship with China.
It's not just America facing this challenge. These Chinese antics extend across the globe. In the United Kingdom, lawyer Christine Lee was identified by that nation's security service for working to influence members of Parliament in China's favor. As part of these efforts, Lee donated $760,000 to a Labour member of Parliament, Barry Gardiner. Gardiner has adopted views in China's favor. Sometimes, China's influence efforts are quite extraordinary. Until recently, for example, New Zealand had two Chinese agents serving as members of its parliament.
You'd think the U.S. government would prioritize efforts to stop China's influence agenda.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration has weakened the FBI's hand in going after Chinese spies on American soil. It did so by ending the Trump-era "China Initiative." This program was designed to detect the large number of Chinese spies who have infiltrated the U.S. academic and scientific communities. The initiative focused on incidents of grant fraud and a failure to declare connections to the Chinese state. It recognized that while some Chinese spies are motivated by a sense of loyalty to the ruling Communist Party, others are co-opted into service via threats to them or their families. The initiative had broad support in the U.S. national security community. However, shuttering the China Initiative in 2022, President Joe Biden's Justice Department pathetically claimed it was prejudicial and unfair.
China exploits these "woke" Western impulses. It promotes the narrative that any effort to constrain its espionage activity is motivated by bigotry. Lamenting increased U.S. efforts to deny entry to suspected Chinese spies arriving at U.S. airports, for example, Chinese state media declared that the U.S. was showing "ideological bias" and "xenophobia." Beijing knows full well that these American efforts are designed to mitigate the risk of situations such as that which long occurred at Los Alamos nuclear laboratory.
"Between 1987 and 2021, at least 162 scientists who had worked at Los Alamos returned to [China] to support a variety of domestic research and development programs. ... Since returning to China, Los Alamos alumni have helped [China] advance key military and dual-use technologies in areas such as hypersonics, deep-earth penetrating warheads, unmanned autonomous vehicles, jet engines, and submarine noise reduction," the Strider private intelligence company reported .
Yet the CCP is not content simply with influencing American politics or spying on U.S. interests. It is also determined to shred the First Amendment rights of the public.
Take the Washington Post expose on Tuesday that documented how Chinese diplomats organized the harassment and physical attacks against law-abiding protesters during Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2023 visit to San Francisco. A similar incident occurred in the U.K. in October 2022. There, Chinese diplomats attacked protesters outside a Chinese Consulate, even dragging them inside the consulate grounds. The Chinese consul general led the attacks.
Reality is not in favor of those, such as Vice President Kamala Harris's national security adviser Phil Gordon, who have claimed that China does not pose an "existential national security threat."
Chinese diplomats and security officials are notorious for their poor behavior abroad. When Queen Elizabeth II was introduced to a police officer responsible for securing Xi's state visit to the U.K. in 2015, for example, the normally mild-mannered queen responded , "Bad luck," and observed that the Chinese officials had been "very rude." Again, a central point of contention was the Chinese demand that all protests be banned during Xi's visit.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The lesson of these varied experiences should be clear. China views diplomacy and espionage as only slightly different tools in its pursuit of a singular agenda. Namely, the domination of CCP interests over the ideals and interests of all others.
Beijing likes to claim its most sacred foreign policy principle is noninterference in the affairs of others. The exact opposite is true.
Most Popular
Comments / 0