CCP Spy Network Runs Deep in U.S. Military laboratories, Ivy League universities, private citizens face widespread espionage and repression from Chinese agents (http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-6-20/29637.html) By Jonathan Browde The Epoch Times Jun 20, 2005 (AFP/Getty Images) A large network of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spies is rampant in the U.S., say members of Congress, Ivy League academics, and two defecting CCP officials. The spies aim not only to steal military and technology secrets but also to influence, repress, and even control the ideals and actions of Americans. In defecting in Australia early in June, CCP officials Mr. Hao Fengiun and Mr. Chen Yonglin sparked a string of headlines, first in Australia then in Canada, about a massive network of CCP spies in Western countries that could far exceed previously held estimates of the problem. On the heels of these revelations, Australia’s foreign minister and Canada’s prime minister both personally responded to criticism from opposition leaders that their governments had not done enough to curb espionage and other illicit activity by CCP agents in their countries. According to one scholar with intimate knowledge of several Ivy League universities and associated research centers, however, the problem is far greater in the United States, where a public dialogue on the issue has yet to emerge. “If China has deployed 1,000 spies to Australia and another 1,000 to Canada,” the scholar noted, “can you imagine how many are here in the U.S.?” Military Designs and Technology Stolen Prior to 9/11, Chinese espionage was a top concern among the nation’s lawmakers and security agencies. In May 1999, a Congressional select committee on military and commercial concerns with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) issued a report detailing the problems of Chinese espionage in the U.S. According to the declassified version of the report, known as the Cox Report, the primary targets of Chinese espionage had been the nation’s weapons laboratories, such as Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge and Sandia. Dating back several decades “and almost certainly continu[ing] today,” the report says key military technologies such as advanced thermonuclear weapons, the neutron bomb and an assortment of nuclear missiles had been taken by Chinese spies. “The PRC,” says the report, “uses a variety of techniques, including espionage, controlled commercial entities, and a network of individuals and organizations that engage in a vast array of contact with scientists, business people, and academics.” According to the FBI’s annual report, there has been a 20-30 percent rise in the number of Chinese espionage cases in Silicon Valley, a hotbed of technology innovation located south of San Francisco. On February 13, 2005, Time magazine reported that over 3,000 companies in the U.S. are suspected of gathering intelligence for the PRC. Many of these companies, says a source who has worked with a number of Ivy League Universities and associated research centers, are fronts for China’s “People’s Liberation Army.” According to Xu Wenli, a pro-democracy advocate who was jailed for 12 years in China, the CCP actively recruits and sends students abroad to gather information for the government. Some of these students then move on to work for military and government contractors here in the U.S.—all the while, gathering and sending information back to the CCP. More recently, however, another side of China’s spy network, one that aims to influence, repress, or control ideology and discussions on university campuses, has been highlighted. Chinese Communist Fronts Mobilized at U.S. Universities According to several academics at Yale, Harvard, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, the CCP has been very active on U.S. campuses. Working primarily through on-campus student groups, they say Chinese consulate officials seek to silence academics critical of the CCP, and promote the regime as peaceful, progressive and a vital player on the world stage. According to one Ivy League scholar, Chinese consulate officials meet with students on campus, providing them with direction and organizing “united fronts” against CCP critics. “I was present at one such meeting,” said the scholar. As a result, lecturers at the universities offering critical analyses of the Chinese government have sometimes met with hecklers who would stand up and yell at them in the middle of their lectures. “The aim,” says the scholar, “is to not only discredit the lecturer and the subject matter, but also intimidate fellow students from adopting points of view critical of China. This has happened to me on a number of occasions.” According to this scholar, consulate officials also pay students to attend rallies and other events promoting the Beijing government. Dr. Yi Rong, a human rights worker in New York City concurs. “Chinese students are paid and bussed in by the hundreds to form a greeting rally whenever a high-ranking Chinese official visits the city,” says Dr. Yi. In October 2002, Chinese students from several universities, including the University of Chicago and University of Houston, were offered free clothing and payment to welcome then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin during his trip to Chicago and Houston. In an e-mail to the students, the Friendship Association of Chinese Students & Scholars described the event as a “serious political task” and, according to Voice of America, required all participants to sign a document forfeiting their First Amendment rights during the event in an apparent attempt to curb any would-be protesters. Any one violating the agreement could be fined up to $5,000 dollars, VOA reported. The First Secretary of the Office of Tibet in New York City, (Snu) Tendar, says the CCP has also deployed teams of “scholars” around the world to deliver lectures at major universities. Tendar says that using the forum of scholarly discourse and lectures, these teams have promoted pro-Beijing ideas, such as classifying the invasion of Tibet as a “liberation” of the people from the “feudal lords” of the Dalai Lama. At Columbia University, hate literature was found posted in the Asia Studies building, reiterating word-for-word CCP propaganda against the Falun Gong group. Campus police quickly disposed of the materials upon their discovery. At Yale University, a student running for president of the Association of Chinese Students & Scholars at Yale (ACSSY) quickly found herself a target of criticisms attacking her personal beliefs when it became known she practices Falun Gong. During a public debate on the day before the election, a member of the audience asked, “If you get elected, how are we going to keep our relations with the Chinese consulate?” Many of the ACSSY activities around campus are sponsored by the New York Chinese consulate. “You’d think that an Ivy League campus would be free of this sort of thing,” says one graduate student at Columbia University, “given the weight that dialogue, diversity, respect, and tolerance have in our community. But it’s pretty clear these aren’t quite traditions or values China’s current leadership subscribes to, and that’s why we’re seeing acts of hate and intimidation like these happening here, in the U.S., of all places.” CCP Repression of Falun Gong Throughout U.S. Outside university campuses, CCP agents or those believed to be working under their direction, have sought to repress and intimidate practitioners of Falun Gong, Tibetans and other groups perceived as a threat or vocal critics of the CCP. Acting as a volunteer spokesperson for Falun Gong in New York City, Ms. Gail Rachlin says her apartment has been broken into five times since the CCP first launched its campaign to eradicate Falun Gong in 1999. In each break-in, no valuables were stolen. “Only my personal phone list…a rolodex….things like that,” says Rachlin. On two separate occasions, Dr. Sen Nieh, a professor at Catholic University of America in Washington D.C and a local Falun Gong spokesperson, has come home to find private conversations with friends—which took place in public venues such as parks or walkways—recorded on his answering machine. The second of the two instances, reported in the Washington Post on July 20, 2001, was a conversation he had with other Falun Gong practitioners while standing outside a Senate building on Capitol Hill immediately after meeting with a senator’s staff to brief them on the persecution of Falun Gong. “Obviously, they are trying to send a clear message that they are watching us at every moment...they’re trying to scare us,” says Dr. Nieh. In January 2003, Hong Lei, a spokesperson for the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, went on local Chinese television to say that the consulate had a list of all Falun Gong practitioners in the San Francisco Bay area and warned them not to go back to China. Public venues have also come under fire. Hotels in San Francisco and New York have been contacted by Chinese consular officials or threatened by unidentified callers, pressuring them not to allow Falun Gong events to be conducted in their facilities. In November 2004, the National Arts Club in New York City received several threatening phone calls, including at least one bomb threat, on the opening night of an art exhibit with works depicting the Falun Gong practice and the persecution in China. Several Falun Gong spokespersons have reported receiving death threats. There has also been actual violence. In September 2001, two assailants attacked Falun Gong practitioners conducting a sit-in outside the Chinese consulate in Chicago, beating one victim to the ground and tearing his clothing. Two of the assailants were arrested and pled guilty to battery. They were both members of an organization with very close ties to the Chinese consulate. In June 2003, a group of assailants attacked several Falun Gong practitioners as they demonstrated outside a restaurant in New York’s Chinatown. The head of a local Chinese community organization, Mr. Guan Jun Liang, was arrested in connection with the attack. Criminal charges against Liang, who personally greeted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao when he visited New York in 2003, were dropped, but a civil lawsuit against Liang is in progress. Falun Gong practitioners have also been physically attacked in San Francisco, Toronto, and Boston. The United States Congress passed a concurrent resolution in September 2004, condemning China’s actions of spying on and harassing Americans who practice Falun Gong, which listed instances of breaking and entering as well as assault and battery.