The surveillance balloon that floated across the US before being shot down by an Air Force F-22 fighter allegedly marked the most recent — and most brazen — effort by China to spy on the US.
There have been scores of recent incidents through which Beijing has used a wide selection of methods to acquire intelligence, in addition to military and industrial technology, from the US.
In 2021, the Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank in Washington, DC, compiled a listing of 160 incidents of Chinese espionage directed on the US since 2000.
The survey showed that nefarious activity by Beijing gave the impression to be on the rise, with 24% occurring from 2000 through 2009 and 76% from 2010 through 2021.
The CSIS noted that its list was derived from open-source material and sure didn’t comprise the actual total variety of incidents.
“It is maybe noteworthy that of the 160 reported incidents we found, 89 occurred after [Chinese President] Xi Jinping took power,” it added.
Listed below are a number of the ways in which China has been accused of infiltrating the US:
Hacking
In 2020, the US Justice Department charged five Chinese nationals with hacking into the pc networks of greater than 100 firms within the US and elsewhere.
The hackers, who were believed to stay at large in China, were described as a part of “Advanced Persistent Threat 41,” a cyber-attack group that operates with the blessing of the Chinese Communist Party.
Two years earlier, Chinese hackers were accused of stealing secret plans for a supersonic anti-ship missile being developed for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, RI.
Chinese hackers have also been accused of stealing plans for America’s F-35 stealth fighter, based on documents leaked by rogue US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden in 2015.
Each the Pentagon and jet builder Lockheed Martin Corp. said on the time that no classified information was lost throughout the breach.
Satellites
As of May 2018, China had greater than 120 satellites orbiting the globe to conduct reconnaissance and distant sensing for military, civil and industrial purposes, in accordance with an unclassified 2019 Air Force report.
The People’s Liberation Army reportedly owned and operated “half of those systems, most of which could support monitoring, tracking and targeting of US forces,” the report said.
“These satellites also allow the PLA to keep up situational awareness of China’s regional rivals (e.g., India and Japan) and potential regional flashpoints (e.g., Korea, Taiwan, and the East and South China Seas),” the report added.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency also released a contemporaneous report that said China was developing “more sophisticated satellite operations” with “dual-use technologies” to take out other eyes within the sky.
“China continues to develop quite a lot of counterspace capabilities designed to limit or prevent an adversary’s use of space-based assets during crisis or conflict,” the DIA report said.
China can also be willing to amass technology “by any means available,” putting its military “on the verge of fielding a number of the most up-to-date weapon systems on the earth,” the DIA warned on the time.
“In some areas, it already leads the world,” the agency added.
Secret agents
In 2020, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo exclusively told The Post that the Chinese Consulate in Manhattan was getting used as a serious hub of Beijing’s espionage program.
“They’re engaged in activities where they’re crossing the road from normal diplomacy to the sorts of things that will be more akin to what spies are doing,” he said on the time.
Pompeo’s remarks got here about two months after the US government forced China to shutter its consulate in Houston in response to the alleged thefts of American mental property that were “costing hundred of hundreds of jobs.”
Former CIA Chief of Counterintelligence James Olson has also said that greater than 100 Chinese spies were operating within the Big Apple at any given time.
“Their spy program is very large,” Olson told The Post in 2020. “They aggressively mine social media and search for Chinese-Americans who’ve affection for Mother China.”
Olson said China’s recruitment pitch included convincing potential turncoats “that what they’re doing won’t be harmful to US interests — regardless that, in fact, it’s.
“China has multiple spies working on a selected project,” he said. “So [an agent] could also be getting small pieces of knowledge, which seem inconsequential but are part of a bigger plan.”
‘Honeypot’ traps
A blockbuster 2020 investigation by Axios revealed that a suspected Chinese spy named Fang Fang cozied as much as local and national politicians across the country, including US Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.)
Fang, also referred to as “Christine Fang,” was a Swalwell fundraiser who also helped place not less than one intern in his office, Axios said.
Swalwell was recently booted from the House Intelligence Committee, together with fellow California Democrat Adam Schiff, by recent House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
The fashionable-day Mata Hari also had sexual or romantic relationships with not less than two mayors of Midwestern cities, including a sexual encounter with an Ohio mayor inside a automobile that was under FBI surveillance on the time, Axios said.
Law enforcement
Together with US military and counterintelligence personnel, members of American law enforcement are amongst China’s most sought-after undercover assets, Olson said.
In 2011, veteran FBI electronics technician Kun Shan “Joey” Chun, a naturalized US citizen, was traveling in Europe when he met a person who identified himself as a Chinese government official.
In exchange for lavish trips and money for his family, Chun passed along “the identity and travel patterns of an FBI special agent” — in addition to the organizational chart of the bureau’s Latest York Field Office and photos of documents he shot along with his cellphone.
Chun, who was snared in a 2015 sting operation, pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent and was sentenced to 2 years in prison after tearfully saying, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry to the FBI.”
Much more stunning was the 2020 arrest of NYPD cop and Army reservist Baimadajie Angwang on charges he spied on fellow Tibetan-Americans and passed along information to a handler stationed in Manhattan’s Chinese Consulate.
On the time, FBI Latest York Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney called Angwang “the definition of an insider threat.”
But federal prosecutors unexpectedly dropped the case last month, citing unspecified “additional information bearing on the costs,” The Post exclusively reported on the time.
Angwang, who consistently maintained his innocence, blamed his arrest on anti-Asian prejudice and overzealous prosecutors, telling CBS Latest York last week, “I feel they knew I’m not the guy.”
Meanwhile, former NYPD sergeant-turned-private detective Michael McMahon is awaiting trial for allegedly helping track down Chinese nationals living within the US as a part of China’s “Operation Fox Hunt” forced-repatriation program.
Academia
A NASA researcher and professor at Texas A&M University, Zhengdong Cheng, was busted in 2020 on charges he accepted as much as $750,000 in federal grant money while hiding his affiliation with China’s government-run Guangdong University of Technology.
The FBI also accused him of participating in Beijing’s “Hundred Talents Plan” to recruit American university professors to steal mental property for China.
Cheng struck a plea deal in September and was sentenced to 13 months already spent in jail, together with agreeing to pay $86,876 in restitution and a $20,000 effective.
China has also been accused of infiltrating American colleges and universities through its “Confucius Institute” program to show Chinese language, history and culture.
In 2020, the US State Department designated the Confucius Institute US Center as a foreign mission of the People’s Republic of China.
“Confucius Institutes are funded by the PRC and a part of the Chinese Communist Party’s global influence and propaganda apparatus,” Pompeo said on the time.
The Washington Free Beacon later reported that Columbia University accepted $1 million to determine a Confucius Institute on the Ive League school in Upper Manhattan.
A Columbia spokesperson said on the time, “The university’s disclosure of funding from foreign sources fully complies with federal requirements for reporting donations.”
