By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

An Overview Of Chinese Spy Activities

On 27 April 2024 The New York Times reported; "Suddenly, Chinese Spies seem to be popping up all over Europe."

The Government of China is engaged in espionage overseas, directed through diverse methods via the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the United Front Work Department (UFWD), People's Liberation Army (PLA) via its Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department, and numerous front organizations and state-owned enterprises. It employs a variety of tactics including cyber espionage to gain access to sensitive information remotely, signals intelligence, human intelligence as well as influence operations through united front activity targeting overseas Chinese communities and associations.

A flurry of arrests this week reflects the continent’s newly toughened response to Beijing’s espionage activities and political meddling.

One of the men, a young Briton known for his hawkish views on China, worked as an aide to a prominent member of the British Parliament. Another, a German citizen of Chinese descent, was an assistant to a member of the European Parliament representing Germany’s far right.

While from different countries and seemingly divergent backgrounds and outlooks, both men became ensnared this week in accusations of espionage on behalf of China — and a widening pushback in Europe against malign Chinese influence in politics and commerce.

In all, six people in three separate cases have been charged this week in Europe with spying for China: two in Britain and four in Germany.

With the intent of following up on the NYT article, we will start an overview of earlier Chinese Spy occurrences we reported on of which The New York Times is a continuation to continue further in Part Two.

A Chinese spy has betrayed his country to defect to Australia in a move that's placed his life, and the safety of his young family, at risk.

Wang 'William' Leqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover in Australia.

In doing so, he's revealed a trove of insider secrets from within Beijing's intelligence operations, providing details on how major political interference operations are being run in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia.

The 27-year-old has taken his information to the Australian counter-espionage agency, ASIO and, in return, he is seeking urgent protection from the government.

Wang is currently hiding out in Sydney with his wife and two-year-old son.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, The Age, and The Sydney Morning Herald, Wang said he is living in constant fear of being watched, followed or attacked.

"I have moved three times and I may move again in the future… as the feeling of being followed is really scary," he told investigative journalist Nick McKenzie.

 Wang has admitted personal involvement in a series of Chinese espionage missions since 2014.

He has provided previously unheard details about the kidnapping of five booksellers from the Causeway Bay Bookshop and their rendition to the Chinese mainland.

"I was one of the insiders who conveyed the task," Wang said.

When asked by McKenzie why Australians should believe his claims, Wang responded: "Considering my interests, if I don't tell the truth, the Australian government will not protect me. There is no benefit for me. Every detail and every incident I have said can stand up to scrutiny."

His testimony includes exposing how Beijing's spies are infiltrating Hong Kong's democratic movement, manipulating Taiwan's political system, and operating with impunity in Australia.

Wang claimed his loyalty to Beijing faltered in May when he received a fake South Korean passport and was ordered to travel to Taiwan to meddle in the upcoming presidential election.

He revealed it was the moment of truth that made him realize he was at risk of losing his true identity forever.

"This time I was requested to change my name and whole identity to go to Taiwan and be a spy there,"  Wang said.

"This is the main reason why I came to Australia to seek asylum. As Taiwan's ability of anti-infiltration is very strong, once I was found out, then my safety would be at stake. What would my family, my young son do? Who could protect me?"

Mr Wang said he is willing to help the Australian government understand China's intelligence system and he has knowledge about operatives working here.

He described his decision to take on the Chinese government and its powerful intelligence operation as an ant challenging an elephant. But he said, at the very least, his son will one day understand that he stood up for what counts.

Since his revelations have gone public, police in Shanghai have released a statement accusing Mr Wang of being a convicted fraud and wanted fugitive.

Federal MP Andrew Hastie

But Federal MP Andrew Hastie said Wang deserves Australia's protection.

"I think it takes huge reserves of courage to step out into the public square as a former Chinese spy and reveal to the Australian public what you've been up to," he said.

"I'm of the view that anyone willing to assist us in defending our sovereignty, deserves our protection."

For now, though, Wang and his young family are in no man's land, counting down the days of his tourist visa and watching his back.

As we pointed out in a six-part article series the Government of China is engaged in espionage overseas, directed through diverse methods via the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the United Front Work Department (UFWD), People's Liberation Army (PLA) via its Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department, and numerous front organizations and state-owned enterprises. It employs a variety of tactics including cyber espionage to gain access to sensitive information remotely, signals intelligence, and human intelligence as well as influence operations through united front activity targeting overseas Chinese communities and associations.

Hence we proceed with an overview of earlier Chinese Spy occurrences we reported on of which The New York Times is a continuation.

Although our earlier six-part investigation about Chinese spy operations at the time had already some time in the making, we decided to go ahead the day top officials from the U.S. Justice Department partly to send out a warning unveiled a slate of indictments against 13 Chinese nationals accused of spying on behalf of Beijing.

Next, we covered in Part Two, how Chinese police stations in the Netherlands were ordered to close immediately, and the British government announced it would step up work to prevent “transnational repression” as police investigate reports of undeclared Chinese “police stations” around the country. 

In Part Three, we described how the Ministry of State Security (MSS) could lure in foreign friends from the highest levels. And in Part Four, we described the circumstances that allowed past MSS spy operations to thrive.

With its rejuvenated authority, the CCP advocates a political agenda characterized by overt nationalism. This nationalism promotes a modern and state-centric constructivist narrative that predicates China's global ambitions upon support for this ideology.

In Part Five we described how the Chinese spy agency (MSS) foraged into using a Buddhist Temple. Master Yishun, the abbot of Nanshan Temple and head of its MSS-backed charity, is the face of a new breed of Chinese Buddhists. More in tune with the pronouncements of Xi Jinping than Buddha’s words.

The strategy that China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), its principal civilian intelligence service, took toward the United States after 9/11 followed a Chinese saying, ge an guan huo, which roughly translates as “watch the fires burn from the safety of the opposite river bank, which allows you to avoid entering the battle until your enemy is exhausted.” The MSS followed this saying to a T. Its long-term aim was to contain the United States and then supplant it in Southeast Asia. As the United States was mired in the Middle East, the gains made by the MSS went largely undetected or appreciated by U.S. intelligence.

Chinese intelligence was soon winning its war on U.S. spies. In 2010 the MSS dismantled a major CIA network being run from its station in Beijing. This led to China’s recruitment of former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee. The justice department says Lee was contacted by Chinese intelligence agents in 2010. They offered him money, promising to take care of him "for life" in exchange for the required secret information. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were deposited in his Hong Kong bank account between May 2010 and December 2013. Lee created a document containing information about CIA activities, including locations to which US agents would be assigned.

Hong Kong media identified the man in the blue tie as Lee.

The justice department said that Lee was interviewed by CIA officers in 2012, during which he said he had met Chinese intelligence officers but concealed that they had set him tasks. In 2013 he first denied knowing about the document on his USB drive and then admitted he had created it but said he had never handed it on to Chinese agents. He was arrested at New York's JFK airport in January 2018.

The information provided by Lee is said to have helped China to bring down a network of informants between 2010 and 2012. About 20 informants were killed or jailed during that period - one of the most disastrous failures of US intelligence in recent years.

Lee is not the only former CIA officer convicted of working with China. A former CIA spy Kevin Mallory was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of conspiring to transmit US defense secrets to China.

thanks to successive national security legislation passed under President Xi Jinping, Chinese businesses must work with its intelligence services whenever requested. They are effectively silent partners in Chinese commerce with the outside world. Another difference between Chinese intelligence and Western powers concerns what those in the spy world call ubiquitous technical surveillance. Facial recognition, phone apps, and CCTV all make China an infinitely harder target for Western agencies to collect intelligence than Chinese services’ targets in open Western democracies. 

Then from January 28 to February 4, 2023, a high-altitude balloon originating from China flew across North American airspace.

 

 

 

At the time China’s spy balloons were equipped with state-of-the-art sensors capable of eavesdropping on electronic signals from near space that satellites could not.

On December 28, 2023, it was determined that the balloon utilized an undisclosed American service provider to provide data back to Beijing.

 

 

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