The American public may have reached a turning point in awareness and understanding of Chinese surveillance methods, creating the opportunity to understand some of the most surprising ways in which Beijing conducts its intelligence-gathering operations.
“What’s interesting about this whole incident in the past week is that it’s a wake-up call to the average American about how aggressive and extensive China’s spying activities are in this country,” said Matt McInnis, a senior fellow at the Institute for War Study. China show, he told Fox News Digital.
“There is probably no more aggressive espionage activity in the world than what China has been carrying out in recent decades.”
The Pentagon announced Thursday that the US government had detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon, first seen over Montana, where it hovered over Malmstrom Air Force Base. The United States uses the base to store nuclear weapons.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Tomas Pedro/ Reuters)
Senior State and Defense Department officials called the surveillance balloon’s presence in US airspace an “unacceptable” violation of US sovereignty, and the military shot down the balloon Saturday afternoon as it reached the Atlantic Ocean.
McInnis said he hoped the spy balloon would serve as a “tipping point” for the conversation about China surveillance in the United States, “especially for people who are in a position to do something really significant.”
The media have extensively covered the more traditional methods of intelligence gathering and espionage (cyber security, satellites, double agents, honey traps and TikTok), but China has taken an approach that some refer to as “mosaic” or “vacuum.” , with the aim of acquiring as much information as possible, however small it may seem.
Here are some more subtle ways China uses its tools on US citizens and interests.
A plaque and flag hang outside the China Institute, home of the Confucius Institute, in New York. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
FINANCIAL
Many of China’s operations focus on money, either through more insidious uses such as bribery or blackmail or more gentle methods, such as financing and buying institutions and people abroad.
“My recollection of these cases is that [money] seems to be a great motivator,” McInnis said. “And then others, who have family and family ties within China, can serve as sources of potential nationalism or pressure on their families. That has been the most common.”
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China seeks to use the money to gain influence and entry into US institutions, particularly within government or education.
Most famously, China in 2018 tried to buy Westminster Choir College, and the Chinese government acted through a for-profit company, according to NPR. Some argued that Beijing’s interest was in operating near Princeton University, which has a reputation as a think tank for the US intelligence community.
Beijing also provided funding for some university institutions to open new facilities as part of the Confucius Institute networks, including the Brooklyn campus of Medger Evers College and Columbia University, The New York Post reported.
The Chinese flag flies in front of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on October 29, 2015. (Reuters/Jason Lee)
The institutes provide lessons on the Chinese language, history, and culture, but the US State Department in 2020 designated the schools as part of China’s propaganda apparatus.
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“The university’s disclosure of funds from foreign sources fully complies with federal requirements for reporting donations,” a Columbia spokesperson said at the time.
McInnis explained that while most won’t view education funding as espionage, “it provides a gateway to many institutions, organizations, educational businesses, civic organizations that allow China to better understand in theory how America works.”
“[They learn] how our business community, the scientific community, political organizations and public opinion work so that they can develop and refine more influence and misinformation and other operations in the future,” McInnis said.
“I think they understand us better than we understand them,” he added.
An American flag flies next to the Chinese national emblem during a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
LONG TERM ASSETS
The US media covered extensively the revelation of an agent, known as Fang Fang or Christine Fang, who targeted emerging US politicians through fundraising campaigns, networking, or even romantic and sexual relationships to obtain access to political power.
But China can and reportedly turns American businessmen and government officials into assets.
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“There are a lot of classic stories over the decades about how Chinese security services set up surveillance operations in hotels or casinos that Americans or others frequent and try to stop and pressure them to blackmail them, to record drug use, sexual activity and other things that may be going on in these places,” McInnis said, clarifying that he was not personally aware of any cases.
More pressing, according to McInnis, is the fact that it is “nearly impossible for any kind of American to travel to China with electronics and be sure they haven’t been compromised,” which he claims could provide China with the information much-needed confidentiality. it can be used for “potential espionage and blackmail activities.”
A survey by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found 160 publicly reported cases of Chinese espionage targeting the US between 2000 and 2020.
The Chinese Embassy May 18, 2012 in Washington, DC (Robert MacPherson/AFP via Getty Images)
Of those CSIS was able to identify, 26% were “non-Chinese actors,” defined as “generally Americans recruited by Chinese officials.” The incidents involved cases of attempts to acquire military technology, commercial technology, or information about US civilian agencies or politicians.
“China seeks to obtain data on technologies early in the R&D cycle before all relevant data is classified at the higher level and is more difficult to obtain, certainly before an actual weapons system is designed.” , Rebekah Koffler, President of Doctrine. & Strategy Consulting and a former DIA intelligence officer, he told Fox News Digital.
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“This approach allows China to save money by not making the same financial outlays on R&D and to speed up the development and implementation phases,” he explained. “Some Chinese military equipment resembles US systems because it is built with stolen technology and sometimes design.
“China is the biggest counterintelligence threat to the United States, followed by Russia.”
COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAW
One of the most egregious examples of China’s most aggressive operations involved the alleged establishment of unauthorized “police stations” in American and European cities to monitor their citizens living abroad.
President Biden, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before their meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit meeting on November 14, 2022, in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“These operations prevent bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law and may violate territorial integrity in third countries involved in the establishment of a parallel police mechanism that uses illegal methods,” said a report by Safeguard Defenders, a body control of human rights. released in September 2022.
The initial purpose of the stations reportedly focused on dealing with citizens abroad, but the report also linked them to efforts to spread Chinese influence and propaganda abroad, The Guardian reported.
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But Beijing’s reach even extended to US law enforcement, as in the case of veteran FBI electronics technician Kun Shan “Joey” Chun, who ended up caught in a sting operation in 2015 and pleaded guilty. of acting as an unregistered foreign agent and was sentenced to two years in prison, the New York Post reported.
In 2020, NYPD cop and Army reservist Baimadajie Angwang was charged with spying on other Tibetan-Americans and passing information to a controller at the Chinese consulate in Manhattan.
Fox News Digital asked the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment on the ongoing spying allegations, and the embassy spokesperson responded by forwarding comments made by the Chinese Foreign Ministry last week about the surveillance balloon. .
Fox News’ Eric Shawn contributed to this report.
