Steal This Newspaper

We are shocked-shocked!-that there are Chinese spies in this country

By Hilda Hei Nam Leung

Click to see full size
Illustration by Alyssa Xu
Person with Newspaper

Every Saturday, a mysterious old man would dart into the Brown bookstore, steal fresh piles of Dajiyuan, a Chinese newspaper critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and trash them in the bookstore's bin. A Brown student who distributes the free publication, discovered the thief on the bookstore's security camera.

On March 7, seven squad cars surrounded an old man in Los Angeles for systematically stealing Dajiyuan. Police had long observed him driving to major distribution areas and absconding with the papers.

Last fall in Flushing, New York, Australian practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which the CCP censures as a cult, also reported the sabotage of Dajiyuan. There, the papers had been stolen and thrown into the streets.

There is no obvious answer for why someone would methodically destroy this Chinese newspaper. What was Brown's campus interloper thinking? Beyond the instinctual responses of racism or derangement lies an explanation that is more outlandish but, perhaps, accurate: he may be a secret agent employed by the Chinese government, with a mission to destroy newspapers that spread anti-CCP messages.

Pardon me, do you have any Dajiyuan?

Click to see full size
Chinese Shop

Dajiyuan is widely distributed in 30 states and more than 10 countries; its online readership is the largest among Chinese web pages. In all locations, Dajiyuan is distributed alongside the English version of the paper, called the Epoch Times. There is reason to believe that the wide circulation among the Chinese Diaspora will eventually threaten CCP's leadership. Recently, Daijiyuan's editors printed a special issue called "Jiuping," or the "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party." The commentaries were passionate in their accusations, calling the CCP an "evil cult." The paper has always been banned in mainland China, and its website is constantly hacked and blocked by the government.

It is uncertain whether the old man is an agent for the CCP. However, it is not incorrect to assume that there are Chinese informers on university campuses across the States. Chinese dissident Xu Wenli, who spent 12 years in jail for editing a pro-democracy publication and is now a researcher at the Watson Institute, said the Chinese government routinely sends students abroad on the condition that they gather information for the government. Most of the information is hardly Tom Clancy material; the information can concern American culture and quality of life rather than state secrets. On the other hand, some students pass on crucial information relating to scientific research results, technological and medical developments.

The major problem is the theft of high-tech information, especially in Silicon Valley, where the FBI is reporting annual 20-30 percent increases in the number of Chinese espionage cases. According to the February 13 issue of Time magazine, over 3,000 companies in the US are under suspicion of gathering intelligence for conveyance to China.

Knowledge sector spying has grown along with China's growing aspirations in the tech economy. But the staggering increase in spy activities has not produced many prosecutions. It is difficult to obtain solid evidence in such cases, and the impact on the Sino-American diplomatic relationship would be tremendous should the United States blindly accuse suspicious students.

There have been a few arrests in Milwaukee; Trenton, New Jersey; and Palo Alto. "Every person arrested was a student. They studied here, got their PhD here, and went to work for places like Lockheed, Raytheon, and Northrop," said Szady. Of course, there are many Chinese agents who are not students. Some of them are, to its great disgrace, the FBI's secret agents.

Double agents

Ning Wen, 55, worked as a paid informant for the FBI until about eight months ago. He was born in China and was recruited by the FBI in 1989, according to court records. Having spied at the Los Angeles Chinese consulate, Wen continued to serve as an FBI informant after he moved to Wisconsin in 1993.

He and his wife, who is also a naturalized American, were charged with illegally selling $500,000 worth of electronics equipment to China in October. According to the FBI and Wisconsin US Attorney Steven Biskupic, federal officials feared that the Chinese government could have used the restricted semiconductor circuits and chips with advanced missiles, radar or military communications devices.

On February 10, the FBI's leader in spy catching used a rare public appearance to ask American businesses to help stop the theft of US business and technology secrets. As Szady admitted, "even as we increase our numbers of agents, we can't possibly totally stop it." He blamed the FBI's incompetence at curbing espionage on the overwhelmingly pervasive presence of Chinese spies.

Author Nicholas Eftimiades answered Szady's concerns 11 years ago, in a book entitled Chinese Intelligence Operations. In 1994, Eftimiades noted China's "wide use of espionage operations" and criticized the "shortsighted allocation of America's intelligence resource." Etimiades warned, "Chinese intelligence gathering operations are now overwhelming US counterintelligence operations efforts." Things have hardly improved since then, or even since 9/11. Katrina M. Leung, a San Marino socialite and Republican fundraiser, was arrested in 2003 along with her lover, former FBI agent James J. Smith. A Chinese American civic leader, Leung was recruited by Smith in 1982 for her valuable contacts in the top ranks of the Chinese government. Over 20 years, the FBI paid her $1.7 million for information about China's military and espionage capabilities, as well as its efforts to influence US electoral politics. Investigators came to believe that during those years she was also secretly copying Smith's documents for Beijing. The Federal Court, however, dismissed all charges in January 2005, because prosecutors had illegally blocked the primary witness, Smith, from talking with Leung's attorneys.

Of course, these spy stories do not prove that the old man who stole Chinese newspapers from Brown's bookstore is an agent sent by the Chinese government. It is equally plausible that this person strongly opposes Dajiyuan's anti-CCP position and its sometimes inflammatory content. The L.A. distribution manager says that Dajiyuan's "objective reporting of sensitive issues, such as persecution of Falungong in China, corruption in government, and the recent and controversial 'Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party' might have offended some people, as it exposed the 'evil nature of the CCP.'"

Hilda Leung B'05 would like to thank Elisabeth Reynolds for her help with this story

Back to Top

the college hill independent

http://www.theindy.com