More PRC agents convicted for stalking, harassing Chinese in US

Convicted as agents for the People's Republic of China, (from left) Zhu Yong, 66,
Michael McMahon, 55, and Zheng Congying, 27, 

A federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, convicted three men on multiple counts of acting and conspiring to act in the United States as illegal agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), without prior notification to the Attorney General.

“The conviction of these three defendants – including a retired NYPD sergeant – is yet another powerful reminder of the Chinese government’s ongoing, pervasive, and illegal behavior here in the United States,” said Assistant Director Suzanne Turner of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division.

Michael McMahon, 55, of Mahwah, New Jersey, was convicted June 20 of acting as an illegal agent of the PRC, conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and interstate stalking US Chinese residents.

In the same court, Congying Zheng, 27, of Brooklyn, was convicted of conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and interstate stalking; and Zhu Yong aka Jason Zhu, 66, of Queens, New York, was convicted of conspiracy to act as an illegal agent of the PRC, acting as an illegal agent of the PRC, conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and interstate stalking.

“The defendants engaged in a campaign of harassment and coercion on behalf of the PRC to force the victim’s repatriation to China from the United States, including by threatening family members,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. 

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, McMahon – a retired NYPD sergeant working as a private investigator – and Zhu knowingly acted at the direction of the PRC government officials to conduct surveillance and engage in a campaign to harass, stalk and coerce certain residents of the United States to return to the PRC as part of a global and extralegal repatriation effort known as “Operation Fox Hunt.” Zheng engaged in interstate stalking of the same victims, leaving a threatening note at their residence.

Tuesday's verdict follows a three-week trial before US District Judge Pamela K. Chen. McMahon faces up to 20 years in prison, Zhu faces up to 25 years in prison, and Zheng faces up to 10 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

“The jury’s verdict confirms that defendants McMahon and Zhu knowingly acted at the direction of a hostile foreign state to harass, intimidate and attempt to cause the involuntary return of a resident of the New York metropolitan area to the People’s Republic of China, and that defendant Zheng harassed and intimidated that same person and his family,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. 

“It is particularly troubling that defendant Michael McMahon, a former sergeant in the New York City Police Department, engaged in surveillance, harassment, and stalking on behalf of a foreign power for money."

As proven at trial, between approximately 2016 and 2019, the defendants participated in an international campaign with members of the PRC government as part of “Operation Fox Hunt” to threaten, harass, surveil and intimidate John Doe #1 and his family, in order to force John Doe #1 and his wife, Jane Doe #1, to return to the PRC. In or around 2015, the PRC government caused the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), an inter-governmental law enforcement organization, to issue “Red Notices” for John Doe #1 and Jane Doe #1, alleging that both persons were wanted by the PRC government on corruption-related charges.

Zhu hired McMahon who obtained detailed information about John Doe #1, his wife, and his daughter from a law enforcement database and other government databases, then reported back to Zhu and others, including a PRC police officer, what he had learned. McMahon also conducted surveillance outside the New Jersey home of John Doe #1’s sister-in-law and provided Zhu and PRC officials with detailed reports of what he had observed. The operation was supervised and directed by several PRC officials, including co-conspirators Hu Ji, a PRC police officer with the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and Tu Lan, a PRC prosecutor with the Wuhan Procuratorate.

In April 2017, Tu Lan and Hu Ji transported John Doe #1’s then-82-year-old father from the PRC to the New Jersey home of John Doe #1’s sister-in-law to attempt to convince John Doe #1 to return to the PRC. The testimony established that John Doe #1’s father was brought by a PRC doctor and charged co-conspirator, Li Minjun, and that while John Doe #1’s father was in the United States, his daughter was threatened with jailing in the PRC. A co-conspirator conducted surveillance of the home during the visit, wearing night-vision goggles provided by the PRC doctor and the PRC prosecutor. McMahon tailed John Doe #1 from the meeting with his elderly father, back to his home, and provided John Doe #1’s address – which was previously unknown – to the PRC operatives.

In October 2016 and April 2017, McMahon emailed himself a China Daily News article titled “Interpol Launches Global Dragnet for 100 Chinese Fugitives,” which stated, “Amid the nation’s intensifying antigraft campaign, arrest warrants were issued by Interpol China for former State employees and others suspected of a wide range of corrupt practices. China Daily was authorized by the Chinese justice authorities to publish the information below.” The article provided a list of photographs and identifying information about Operation Fox Hunt targets by the PRC government, including those of John Doe #1 and Jane Doe #1.

On Sept. 4, 2018, Zheng drove to the New Jersey residence of John Doe #1 and Jane Doe #1 and pounded on the front door. He and a co-conspirator attempted to force open the door to the residence, then left a note that stated “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”

Previously, three other defendants pleaded guilty in connection with their roles in the PRC-directed harassment and intimidation campaign.

Zebin pleaded guilty in March 2022 to interstate stalking conspiracy and is awaiting sentencing. Hongru Jin pleaded guilty in June 2021 to conspiring to act as an illegal agent of the PRC and interstate stalking conspiracy and is awaiting sentencing. Tu Lan, Hu Ji and Li Minjun are fugitives.

McMahon faces up to 20 years in prison, Zhu faces up to 25 years in prison, and Zheng faces up to 10 years in prison.

The arrests of alleged PRC agents operating in the US follows stepped up efforts of the federal government to ferret out the PRC's espionage strategies. It is occuring  during a time of heightened economic competition and geopolitical tensions between the two superpowers.

The US government has arrested and prosecuted several Chinese nationals and Chinese Americans in its investigation into the PRC's surveillance and harassment of people living in the US in recent years.

Beijing has defended the operation as part of an anti-corruption campaign and said its law enforcement agencies follow international laws when abroad.

But Washington has accused the operation of targeting dissidents and opponents of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

According to a report by Spanish-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders, nearly 10,000 Chinese nationals worldwide have been forcibly returned since 2014.

“We hope this verdict serves as a message to other operatives in the United States working right now at the behest of the People’s Republic of China in its effort to silence those who speak out against it,” Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent James Dennehy said.

"At the direction of the PRC’s Ministry of Public Security, the defendants engaged in increasingly egregious efforts at repression, from stalking to outright threats and intimidation tactics undertaken at the victim’s family home. This will not be tolerated within our borders, plain and simple," added Turner. "If you or someone you know have been targeted in this manner, we urge you to contact the FBI – and to all those engaging in such repression tactics, stand forewarned.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter or at his blog Views From the Edge.

Two suspects arrested in Beijing-directed targeting of Falun Gong in the US

Chinese Americans demonstrate against the Peoples Republic of China.

A federal court in the Southern District of New York Friday, May 26, unsealed a complaint charging two California men with acting and conspiring to act as unregistered agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), conspiring to bribe and bribing a government official, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

According to the complaint, John Chen, aka Chen Jun, 70, a Los Angeles resident and former citizen of the PRC, and Lin Feng, a Los Angeles resident and PRC citizen, allegedly participated in a PRC government-directed scheme targeting US-based practitioners of Falun Gong — a spiritual practice banned in the PRC. 

As the contents of the complaint were being revealed in New York, the two suspects were arrested the same day in Los Angeles.

“The Chinese government has yet again attempted, and failed, to target critics of the PRC here in the United States,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland at the press event. Their intended target were the US followers of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, based broadly around meditation, was banned by China in 1999 after 10,000 members appeared at the central leadership compound in Beijing in silent protest. The group has called for people to renounce the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

The PRC government has designated the Falun Gong as one of the “five poisons,” or one of the top five threats to its rule. In China, Falun Gong adherents face a range of repressive and punitive measures from the PRC government, including imprisonment and torture.

 “We allege the defendants in this case attempted to bribe someone they thought was an IRS agent in order to further the Chinese government’s campaign of transnational repression in the United States. But the individual they attempted to bribe was in fact an undercover law enforcement agent, and both defendants were arrested this morning (May 26). 

“The Department of Justice continues to expose the Chinese government’s brazen attempts to perpetrate transnational repression, this time through attempted bribery,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “As highlighted by today’s arrests and charges of conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering, we will not tolerate efforts by the PRC or any foreign government to intimidate, harass, or undermine the rights and freedoms enjoyed by all who live in the United States.”

“China’s government has once again shown its disregard for the rule of law and international norms,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “The FBI will not tolerate CCP repression — its efforts to threaten, harass, and intimidate people — here in the United States. We will continue to confront the Chinese government’s efforts to violate our laws and repress the rights and freedoms of people in our country.”

“John Chen and Lin Feng allegedly waged a campaign at the behest of the Government of the People’s Republic of China to influence a U.S. Government official in order to further the PRC Government’s repression of practitioners of Falun Gong,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “Efforts to manipulate and use the arms of the U.S. Government to carry out the PRC Government’s autocratic aims are as shocking as they are insidious. My office will work vigorously to protect against malign foreign influences.”

The complaint alleges that from at least approximately January 2023 to May 2023, at the direction of the PRC government,via an identified PRC government official (PRC Official-1), tChen and Feng worked too further the PRC government’s campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners in the US. 

As part of the PRC government’s campaign against the Falun Gong, Chen and Feng allegedly engaged in a scheme to manipulate the IRS’s Whistleblower Program in an effort to strip the tax-exempt status of an entity run and maintained by Falun Gong practitioners (Entity-1). 

After Chen filed a defective whistleblower complaint with the IRS (the Chen Whistleblower Complaint), Chen and Feng paid $5,000 in cash bribes, and promised to pay substantially more, to an undercover agents posing as an IRS agent,

Neither Chen nor Feng notified the Attorney General that they were acting as agents of the PRC government in the United States which they would be required to do.

In the course of the scheme, Chen, on a recorded call, explicitly noted that the purpose of paying these bribes, which were directed and funded by the PRC government, was to carry out the PRC government’s aim of “toppl[ing] . . . the Falun Gong.” 

During a call intercepted pursuant to a judicially authorized wiretap, Chen and Feng discussed receiving “direction” on the bribery scheme from PRC Official-1, deleting instructions received from PRC Official-1 in order to evade detection, and “alert[ing]” and “sound[ing] the alarm” to PRC Official-1 if Chen and Feng’s meetings to bribe Agent-1 did not go as planned. 

Chen and Feng also discussed that PRC Official-1 was the PRC Government official “in charge” of the bribery scheme targeting the Falun Gong.

As part of this scheme, Chen and Feng allegedly met with the undercover agent in Newburgh, New York, on May 14. During the meeting, Chen gave the fake IRS official a $1,000 cash bribe as an initial, partial bribe payment. Chen further offered to pay the undercover agent a total of $50,000 for opening an audit of Entity-1, as well as 60% of any whistleblower award from the IRS if the Chen Whistleblower Complaint were successful. 

On May 18, Feng paid the undercover agent posting as an IRS employee a $4,000 cash bribe at John F. Kennedy International Airport as an additional partial bribe payment in furtherance of the scheme. Chen allegedly obtained funding from the PRC government to make bribe payments during his trips to the PRC in the course of the scheme.

Chen and Feng are each charged with:

1. one count of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the Attorney General and to bribe a public official, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison;
2. one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the Attorney General, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; 
3. one count of bribing a public official, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison; and (4) one count of conspiring to commit international money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The arrests of the two suspected foreign agents in California is the latest in a focus of on suspected PRC agents in the US who have been engaged in alleged activities against US residents. Last month federal authorities arrested two men in New York City who have been charged with harassing and threatening New York residents of Chinese descent. 

“No other nation poses as severe a threat to the democratic values of the United States as the government of the People’s Republic of China,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. “The FBI will not stand by as the PRC attempts to weaponize our institutions and programs and attack the rights of those on US soil. Any attempt to repress or harass individuals runs directly counter to the ideals our nation was founded upon, and it simply will not be tolerated.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter or at his blog Views From the Edge.

US agents arrest Massachusetts man for acting as a PRC agent and abridging rights of Chinese Americans

The federal government arrested Litang Liang, above, for acting as a PRC agent.

A Massachusetts man was arrested on May 9 for allegedly acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) without providing notification to the US Attorney General.

Litang Liang, 63, of Brighton, was indicted on one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without providing notification to the US Attorney General and one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without providing notification to the US Attorney General.

“We will not tolerate the PRC’s efforts to interfere with public discourse and threaten civic participation in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “This case demonstrates, once again, the lengths that the PRC government, including its Ministry of Public Security, will go to target people in the US. who exercise their rights to speak out against the PRC.”

Liang's arrest follows the arrests last month of two men in New York accused of allegedly intimidating, harassing and threatening Chinese Americans on behalf of the PRC. Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both New York City residents, were arrested April 17 face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice.

Americans were made aware of the extent of PRC espionage efforts earlier this year when a "spy balloon" from China was discovered floating across the US and Canada. Although the PRC claimed it was a weather balloon that went off course, It was shot down by US jets.

"To be clear, the adversary is not the Chinese people or people of Chinese descent or heritage," cites the FBI. "The threat comes from the programs and policies pursued by an authoritarian government".

“The Department of Justice will protect these individual rights and protect our country against those who seek to unlawfully act on behalf of foreign governments while within our borders,” said US Attorney Rachael S. Rollins for the District of Massachusetts. 

“We allege that Mr. Liang engaged in a series of acts on behalf of the PRC government including providing information on Boston-area residents, organizations and dissidents to PRC government officials – potentially placing people at risk here in Massachusetts and abroad. Attempts to repress constitutionally protected rights here in the United States will never be tolerated. Anyone who infringes upon those rights on American soil will be identified and held to account,” Rollins continued. 

The US requires agents of foreign countries to register with federal authorities government. It has been found that  those agents often act against the interests of the United States and its citizens and legal residents.

According to the charging documents, from in or around 2018 through at least 2022, Liang acted within the United States as an agent of the PRC government by allegedly providing PRC government officials with information on Boston-area individuals and organizations; organizing a counter-protest against pro-democracy activists; providing photographs of and information about the demonstrators to PRC government officials; and providing the names of potential recruits to the PRC’s Ministry of Public Security. At no point did Liang notify the US Attorney General that he was acting as a PRC government agent.

Specifically, beginning in or around 2018, Liang allegedly provided information about Chinese individuals and organizations in the Boston area to PRC government officials – including PRC officials formerly in the United States, the Ministry of Public Security, and the United Front Work Department, an entity which reports directly to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and works to further the CCP’s goals.

It is alleged that Liang provided PRC government officials with information regarding members and leaders of Boston-area, Chinese family associations and community organizations with pro-Taiwan leanings. 

Additionally, it is alleged that Liang sent information regarding anti-PRC activists to PRC officials including: identification of an individual he accused of having “sabotaged” PRC flags in Boston’s Chinatown in October 2018; video of an activist attending the “Boston Stands with Hong Kong” march in August 2019; and photographs of anti-PRC demonstrators in front of the Boston Public Library in September 2019.

The charge of acting as an agent of a foreign government without providing notification to the US Attorney General provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without providing notification to the US. Attorney General provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000. 

“The FBI is not going to stand by and allow undeclared agents of the People’s Republic of China to operate in our country unchecked," said Assistant Director Suzanne Turner of the FBI Counterintelligence Division. "We will continue to steadfastly enforce the law of the land, uncovering these efforts and holding accountable all those who work with foreign governments to violate our laws.” 

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter or at his blog Views From the Edge.

FBI breaks up PRC's New York City "police station" allegedly spying, harassing US residents and citizens

Two Chinese Americans were arrested Monday by the FBI for their connection to secret "police stations" under the direction of officials of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The mission of the "police station" was to harass and intimidate Chinese living in the US, including US citizens, say federal authorities. 

Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both New York City residents, were arrested Monday (April 17) and face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice.

“The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The PRC’s actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.”

There were two criminal complaints against the PRC filed by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York that were unsealed Monday in federal court in Brooklyn:

One resulted in the arrests of Lu and Chen for their involvement in the alleged "police stations." The second complaint charges 44 defendants with various crimes related to efforts by the national police of the PRC – the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in the United States. 

The alleged "police station" was located in lower Manhatten and resulted in the arrests of Lu and Chen at this New York City homes.

As alleged in the complaint, Lu and Chen are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the PRC government as well as obstructing justice by destroying evidence of their communications with an MPS official. The defendants worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS.

In response, the PRC's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a media briefing today, Tuesday, April 18: "China firmly opposes the U.S.'s slander and smears, its political manipulation, the false narrative of 'transnational repression,' and blatant prosecution of Chinese law enforcement and cyber administration officials."

The alleged "police station,"  closed in the fall of 2022 after those operating it became aware of the FBI’s investigation. It occupied an entire floor in an office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown. 

PRC AGENTS?

While acting under the direction and control of an MPS Official, Lu and Chen helped open and operate the clandestine police station," the DOJ alleges. None of the suspects informed the US government that they were helping the PRC government surreptitiously open and operate an illegal MPS police station on US soil. By US law, foreign agents are required to register with the federal government.

“This prosecution reveals the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of our nation’s sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “As alleged, the defendants and their co-conspirators were tasked with doing the PRC’s bidding, including helping locate a Chinese dissident living in the United States, and obstructed our investigation by deleting their communications. Such a police station has no place here in New York City – or any American community.”

Before helping to open the police station in early 2022, Lu had a longstanding relationship of trust with PRC law enforcement, including the MPS. Since 2015, and through the operation of the secret police station, Lu was tasked with carrying out various activities, including to assist the PRC government’s repressive activities on U.S. soil:

• In 2015, during PRC President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, Lu participated in counterprotests in Washington, D.C,. against members of a religion that is forbidden under PRC law. A deputy director of the MPS awarded Lu a plaque for the work he performed on behalf of the PRC government.
• In 2018, Lu was enlisted in efforts to cause a purported PRC fugitive to return to the PRC. The victim reported being repeatedly harassed to return to the PRC, including through threats of violence made to the victim and the victim’s family in the United States and in the PRC.
• In 2022, the MPS Official sought Lu’s assistance in locating an individual living in California who is a pro-democracy activist. In turn, Lu enlisted the help of another coconspirator. Later, when confronted by the FBI about these conversations, Lu denied that they occurred.

In October 2022, the FBI conducted a search of the illegal police station during which  agents interviewed both Lu and Chen and seized their phones. In reviewing the contents of these phones, FBI agents observed that communications between Lu and Chen, on the one hand, and the MPS Official, on the other, appeared to have been deleted. In subsequent consensual interviews, Lu and Chen admitted to the FBI that they had deleted their communications with the MPS Official after learning about the ongoing FBI investigation, thus preventing the FBI from learning the full extent of the MPS’s directions for the overseas police station.

GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The alleged PRC "police station" took up an entire floor of the glass-faced building in Manhatten's Chinatown.

If convicted of conspiring to act as agents of the PRC, the defendants face a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The obstruction of justice charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

In addition to the two arrests, the DOJ is charging 44 defendants with various crimes related to efforts by the national police of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in the United States.

The defendants, including 40 MPS officers and two officials in the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), allegedly perpetrated transnational repression schemes targeting US residents whose political views and actions are disfavored by the PRC government, such as advocating for democracy in the PRC.

In the two schemes, the defendants created and used fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate PRC dissidents residing abroad and sought to suppress the dissidents’ free speech on the platform of a U.S. telecommunications company, which the DOJ documents refer to as "Company-1."

According to ABC News sources, "Company-1" was Zoom and from China the insider allegedly was able to disrupt meetings on Zoom.

The defendants charged in these schemes are believed to reside in the PRC or elsewhere in Asia and remain at large.

CYBER HARASSMENT

“These cases demonstrate the lengths the PRC government will go to silence and harass U.S. persons who exercise their fundamental rights to speak out against PRC oppression, including by unlawfully exploiting a U.S.-based technology company,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “These actions violate our laws and are an affront to our democratic values and basic human rights.”

“China’s Ministry of Public Security used operatives to target people of Chinese descent who had the courage to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party – in one case by covertly spreading propaganda to undermine confidence in our democratic processes and, in another, by suppressing U.S. video conferencing users’ free speech,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI Counterintelligence Division. 

The complaint alleges how members of the 912 Special Project Working Group created thousands of fake online personas on social media sites, including Twitter, to target Chinese dissidents through online harassment and threats. These online personas also disseminated official PRC government propaganda and narratives to counter the pro-democracy speech of the Chinese dissidents.

As alleged, for example, Group members created and maintained the fake social media accounts through temporary email addresses, posted official PRC government content, and interacted with other online users to avoid the appearance that the Group accounts were “flooding” a given social media platform. The Group tracks the performances of members in fulfilling their online responsibilities and rewards Group members who successfully operate multiple online personas without detection by the social media companies who host the platforms or by other users of the platforms.

The investigation also uncovered official MPS instructions to Group members to compose articles and videos based on certain themes targeting, for example, the activities of Chinese dissidents located abroad or the policies of the US government.

As alleged, the defendants also attempted to recruit US permanent residents or citizens to act as unwitting agents of the PRC government by disseminating propaganda or narratives of the PRC government. On several occasions, the defendants used online personas to contact individuals assessed to be sympathetic and supportive of the PRC government’s narratives and asked these individuals to disseminate Group content.

In addition, Group members flooded "Company-1" with complaints to have Chinese dissidents and their meetings removed from the social media platform.

For example, Group members disrupted a dissident’s efforts to commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre through a videoconference by posting threats against the participants through the platform’s chat function. 

In another Company-1 videoconference on the topic of countering communism organized by a PRC dissident residing in New York, Group members flooded the videoconference and drowned out the meeting with loud music and vulgar screams and threats directed at the pro-democracy participants.

GLOBAL ESPIONAGE

The arrest of Lu and Chen is the first arrests in the world in connection with the PRC "police stations."

The DOJ complaints imply the PRC may have scores of these "police stations" operating around the world. The British Broadcasting Corp. reports that PRC embassies in the US and Canada have said the locations are "overseas service stations'' opened during the pandemic supposedly to assist nationals abroad with driver's licence renewal and similar matters.

But human rights groups have accused the PRC of using the outposts to threaten and monitor people of Chinese descent living outside of China.

Safeguard Defenders, a watchdog that tracks disappearances of critics of the Chinese Communist Party, issued a report in September detailing claims that Chinese police are operating a program of foreign stations to harass regime critics abroad.

Beijing claims the so-called overseas service stations were set up to provide essential services to citizens. But Safeguard Defenders said they in fact are used to coerce emigrants to return home to face criminal charges in China, in an effort to silence dissent of the regime abroad.

The Madrid-based Safeguard Defenders' report claims that China was running "illegal, transnational policing operations" in 30 countries, including Europe and Australia.

The Dutch and Irish governments have already ordered China to shut down the operations, while the stations are also being investigated by the governments of the Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

In the US, the FBI charges unveiled Monday may be the tip of an iceberg that reveals the extent the PRC and other foreign governments might have on US citizens. 

By the spread of disinformation, threats, harassment and the abusive use of social media platforms, the foreign agents might be able to influence opinions of Asian America towards candidates, policies or beliefs that would benefit foreign governments or homegrown political entities sympathetic to those countries.

The PRC is not the alone in posing a cyber threat to the US and its people. Many experts described Russia as the far more dangerous short-term threat but warned cyber competition from China is more threatening in the long run, cites the Washington Post.

“When dangerous is defined as having the greatest potential to cause damage to people and organizations in the U.S., the answer is Russia,” said Katie Nickels, director of intelligence for the cybersecurity firm Red Canary, told the Washington Post. “When dangerous is defined as having the greatest potential to threaten the strategic role of the U.S. as an enduring great power, the answer is China.”

“These cases demonstrate that the Chinese Communist Party, once again, attempted to intimidate, harass, and suppress Chinese dissidents in the United States,” said Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office. “In the United States, the freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, and the FBI will work tirelessly to defend everyone's right to speak freely without fear of retribution from the CCP. These complex investigations revealed an MPS-wide effort to repress individuals by using the U.S. communications platform and fake social media accounts to censor political and religious speech.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

FBI's updated report now shows dramatic rise in hate crimes

Hate crimes against Asian Americans are is rising, according to FBI data.

In a new report with updated data, the FBI reissued a new report that shows hate crimes rising to its second highest level since it began collecting hate crime data in 1990.

Hate crimes in the United States surged 11.6% in 2021 from 2020, with the majority based on racial, ethnic and ancestral bias, the FBI said on Monday. Most disturbingly,  hate crimes against Asians rose 167%

“Preventing, investigating and prosecuting hate crimes are top priorities for the Justice Department, and reporting is key to each of those priorities.," said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a statement."The FBI’s supplemental report demonstrates our unwavering commitment to work with our state and local partners to increase reporting and provide a more complete picture of hate crimes nationwide."

A flawed report released last year showed a drop in hate crime drawing heavy criticism from civil rights organizations. The FBI admitted that a switch to a new data system meant  52% of the country's jurisdictions, including some large cities and states, did not meet the reporting deadline resulting in lower total numbers nationally.

The updated report which includes data from more jurisdictions, including New York City and Los Angeles, show that reported hate crime incidents rose to 9,065 in 2021 from 8,120 in 2020.

Officials say the top five hate crime categories reported for 2021 were anti-Black, anti-white, anti-gay male, anti-Jewish and anti-Asian.

The bureau said 64.5% of victims in 2021 were targeted because of their race, ethnicity or ancestry bias while 15.9% were targeted because of sexual-orientation bias and 14.1% were targeted because of religious bias.

For its supplemental report, FBI officials said they were able to retroactively include crime data from some of the country's largest cities that had not yet made the switch to the new reporting format.

That meant that some large cities such as Los Angeles and New York City are now included in its hate crime report, which compares trends between 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, Chicago was able to provide two quarters worth of data for the report.

While the NIBRS 2021 hate crime dataset reported 7,262 incidents and 8,673 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity, the supplemental hate crime dataset reports involve 10,840 incidents and 12,411 related offenses. The supplemental reporting figure is higher as it represents a larger population as more agencies were able to submit via the SRS system. (Due to rounding, percentage breakdowns may not add up to 100 percent.) 

The FBI defines hate crime as a criminal offense "motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity."

The bureau’s annual report is widely used by law enforcement, policymakers, experts and community leaders as a broad measure of hate crime in America. 

Victims of Hate Crime Incidents 

• Over 10,500 single-bias incidents involved 12,411 victims.  
  
  • A percent distribution of victims by bias type shows that
  • 64.5% of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias,
  • 15.9% were targeted because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias,
  • 14.1% were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias,  
  • 3.2% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender identity bias,  
  • 1.4% were targeted because of the offenders’ disability bias, and  
  • 1.0% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender bias. 
• There were 310 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 411 victims.  

Offenses by Crime Category 

• Of the 8,327 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in the updated 2021 dataset,  
  • 43.2% were intimidation,  
  • 35.5% were simple assault, and  
  • 20.1% were aggravated assault.  
  • 19 rapes and 18 murders were reported as hate crimes.  
  • The remaining 70 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons were reported in the category of other.  
• Of the 3,817 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, 71.2% were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism.  
• 267 additional offenses were classified as crimes against society. This crime category represents society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity such as gambling, prostitution, and drug violations. These are typically victimless crimes in which property is not the object.
  

President Biden has made fighting hate crimes, particularly those assaults against Asian Americans, one of his administration's priorities.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has led a concerted effort to gather more accurate data on hate crimes, including more translations services in Asian languages and communications and more outreach and training for law enforcement agencies.

"We are continuing to work with state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to increase the reporting of hate crime statistics to the FBI," says Gupta. "Hate crimes and the devastation they cause communities have no place in this country. The Justice Department is committed to every tool and resource at our disposal to combat bias-motivated violence in all its forms.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Federal agents approaching immigrants, noncitizens, foreign students

NBC

Federal law enforcement agents accused of coercing individuals.

Federal agents are looking more closely at the AANHPI communities and unjustly targeting individuals and coerce them to become informants, according to the Asian Law Caucus.

Agents from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are approaching AANHPI residents and citizens, often on the basis of their race, immigration status or religion, states an ALC press release.

Targeting by federal agents takes different forms, says the ALC. For some community members, federal agents may show up at their homes. For others, agents from the FBI or other agencies may regularly visit their work, school, or place of worship, or cold-call them, seeking what is called a “voluntary interview.” 

Particular vulnerble to these questionable tactics are those members of refugee communities, particularly those whose families fled South Asia and Southeast Asia at as the US military ended operations in those countries, including those from Afghanistan, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. While those targeted are not compelled to comply with such requests, they can often feel that they have to comply simply because the request is coming from a federal agent.

In many cases, FBI agents coerce people to become the agency’s informants by implying that they could create issues in their immigration or visa status, place them on watch lists, and even separate people from their families if the potential FBI recruit does not comply, claim the civil rights attorneys.

Amid this rise in unwarranted federal surveillance and targeting, the ALC team has been providing free legal representation to many individuals and families. As part of the work of the Asian Law Caucus helping community members protect their civil rights, the legal advocates' National Security and Civil Rights program represents San Francisco Bay Area residents.

In just the past year, for example, the ALC supported Afghan families who were approached by federal agents near their homes seeking information to use as leverage, as well as small business owners, university students, and Bay Area residents who are also U.S. citizens. The team is currently representing an Afghan American and US citizen who has been repeatedly approached by FBI agents and has been asked about his wife, who is an Afghan national, on a number of occasions.

Chinese and other Asian students, professors, and researchers have also been frequently approached under suspicion of having ties with the Chinese government and/or engaging in technological espionage. These accusations are typically baseless and often motivated by racially biased assumptions.

The Trump-inspired China Initiative, which focused on Chinese researchers and professors suspected of spying for China proved so ineffective, rarely achieving a guilty plea, was ended in 2021.

In one case, a PhD student at Stanford studying physics was visited at their home by two DHS Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents. When first approached, the student was asked about their research, any “military applications” to the projects they were working on, and the extent of their contact with scientific institutions and researchers in China. The student consulted ALC attorneys, who communicated directly with the HSI agents and effectively ended their inquiry into the student’s life. Since then, the student has not been contacted by agents.

The ALC, part of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice community consortium, issued information (below) for anyone who believe they are being unfairly targeted by federal agents.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

AAPI need to be on guard against anti-Asian attacks throughout the holidays, warns DHS

DHS: AAPI should be cautious during the upcoming hohlidays.

Through the Holiday Season through to the Lunar New Year festivities  in 2022, Asian Americans need to brace themselves against racially or ethnically motivated violent attacks by extremists and anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists, says the Department of Homeland Security.

From 2010 through 2020, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists advocating for the superiority of the white race have committed 18 lethal attacks in the United States, according to the FBI.

Although a DHS report concludes that it "is not aware of an imminent and credible threat to a specific location in the United States,"  DHS warns that domestic terrorists, including racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists advocating for the superiority of the white race, pose the greatest threat against the U.S. and the concept of Democracy.

The Secretary of Homeland Security has issued Wednesday (Nov. 10) an updated National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin regarding the current heightened threat environment across the United States. 

The U.S. continues to face a diverse and challenging threat environment as it approaches several religious holidays and associated mass gatherings that in the past have served as potential targets for acts of violence. 

These threats include those posed by individuals and small groups engaged in violence, including domestic violent extremists (DVEs) and those inspired or motivated by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences. These actors continue to exploit online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity.

 

The ongoing global pandemic continues to exacerbate these threats, in part due to perceived government overreach in implementation of public health safety measures and the racist undertones blaming COVID-19 on China and Chinese. 

Further, foreign terrorist organizations and DVEs continue to attempt to inspire potential followers to conduct attacks in the U.S., including by exploiting the clumsy withdrawal of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. 

Despite the DHS report, as of Nov. 10, the department is not aware of an imminent and credible threat to a specific location in the United States.

The general public, but especially people of color, should exercise extreme caution while celebrating, shopping, attending sporting events or attending religious services during the holidays as they present "targets of opportunity" for violent attacks to amplify racist grievances or present the U.S. as an unstable and unsafe society.

The DHS warns that online activity from foreign and domestic threat actors, to include foreign intelligence services, foreign terrorist organizations, and DVEs, will continue to introduce, amplify, and disseminate narratives that promote violence, and have called for violence against elected officials, political representatives, government facilities, law enforcement, religious communities or commercial facilities, and perceived ideological opponents.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI persepctive, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

FBI Report: 2020 saw the highest number of hate crimes in 12 years.

SCREEN CAPTURE

The surge of anti-Asian hate has spurred protests across the country.

While most of the U.S. remembers 2020 as the year of COVID-19,  the FBI's Hate Crime Statistics for 2020 confirms that for AAPI, it will be remembered as the year of hate. 

The number of reported hate crimes nationwide against Asian and Black people sharply increasedby 6.1% in 2020 as compared to the previous year, according to new FBI data released Monday.

Hate crimes targeting people of Asian descent rose by a whopping 70% last year compared with the number of such incidents in 2019, the FBI said. The increase marks the highest number of reported hate crimes since 2008.

“Last year saw a 6.1% increase in hate crime reports, and in particular, hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity and ancestry, and by gender identity," said Attorney General Merrick Garland. "These numbers confirm what we have already seen and heard from communities, advocates and law enforcement agencies around the country. And these numbers do not account for the many hate crimes that go unreported.

“These statistics show a rise in hate crimes committed against Black and African-Americans, already the group most often victimized. Notably, they show a rise in hate crimes committed against members of the Asian American Pacific Islander community," said Garland.

The increase of hate crimes against AAPI communities coincided with the outbreak in the United States of the Covid-19 pandemic, which some racists have unjustly blamed on Asian Americans because of the coronavirus’ origin in China. Rhetoric attacking the Chinese government Donald Trump and his allies contributed to the anti-Asian American sentiment.

The 2020 data, submitted by 15,150 law enforcement agencies, provide information about the offenses, victims, offenders, and locations of hate crimes. Law enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 7,764 criminal incidents and 10,539 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. 

It should be noted that the UCR Program does not estimate offenses for the jurisdictions that do not submit reports. There are more than 18,000 agencies in the United States and more than 3,000 did not submit their crime statistics in 2020 guaranteeing that the number of hate crimes is actually much higher. 

In addition, law enforcement agencies do not apply the same definition of what constitutes a hate crime. The data also does not count incidents of hate that do not meet the standards of a crime that can be brought before a court.

A distrust of law enforcement also contributes to the underreporting of hate crimes.

"A lot of our community members don't know they can report, or they are afraid to report to law enforcement," said Quyen Dinh, executive director of Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, in a CNN interview. "They would rather share with the community groups they feel comfortable with."

Other highlights of Hate Crime Statistics, 2020, follow. (Due to rounding, percentage breakdowns may not add to 100.0 percent.) 

• There were 7,559 single-bias incidents involving 10,535 victims. A percent distribution of victims by bias type shows that 61.9% of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, 20.5% were victimized because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias, 13.4% were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias, 2.5% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender identity bias, 1.0% were victimized because of the offenders’ disability bias, and 0.7% were victimized because of the offenders’ gender bias.

• There were 205 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 333 victims. Offenses by Crime Category

• Of the 7,430 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2020, 53.4 percent were for intimidation, 27.6% were for simple assault, and 18.1% were for aggravated assault. Twenty-two murders and 19 rapes were reported as hate crimes. The remaining 27 hate crime offenses were reported in the category of other.

• Of the 2,916 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, most (76.4%) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism. Robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other offenses accounted for the remaining 23.6% of crimes against property. 

• 193 additional offenses were classified as crimes against society. This crime category represents society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity such as gambling, prostitution, and drug violations. These are typically victimless crimes in which property is not the object.

The FBI report and reports from AAPI communities have caught the attention of President Biden. In the first week of his administration, he issued an executive order condemning the surge in attacks against people of Asian descen and ordering all federal agencies to find ways to reduce the incidents. In May, he signed the bipartisan COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, expediting Justice Department reviews of anti-Asian hate crimes and making available federal grants.

“These hate crimes and other bias-related incidents instill fear across entire communities and undermine the principles upon which our democracy stands," said Garland. "All people in this country should be able to live without fear of being attacked or harassed because of where they are from, what they look like, whom they love or how they worship."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For more commentary and references, follow me on Twitter @dioknoed.

Sunday Read: DOJ declares its China Initiative a success

The Department of Justice under Donald Trump has put a bull’s-eye on the Chinese government, pushing prosecutors across the country to focus on investigations of Chinese state-backed efforts to steal intellectual property.

Many Chinese researchers, students and visitors and Chinese Americans feel that the controversial program has placed a target on their back, and that they victims of racial profiling. Other critics who say the Initiative has done little more than drive talent away from the U.S.

Although the initiative has resulted in some arrests and prison time for those found guilty, the work has also swept up some Chinese Americans who were innocent of the allegations but lost their jobs, studies ended or had their reputation ruined because of the perceived connection with Chinese efforts to secure U.S. technology and research.

Since the Department of Justice announced its "China Initiative" in 2018, it has filed scores of criminal cases pertaining to economic espionage, trade secret, and export controls. According to the DOJ's Assistant Attorney General for National Security, "The Department's China Initiative is focused on preventing and prosecuting thefts of American technology and intellectual property for the benefit of China." 

The work involves investigations into American academics and work with U.S. universities, and department officials say their nationwide undertaking isn’t slowing it down.

The department’s targets range from Chinese military officers to American college professors — evidence, its leadership says, that the Chinese government is targeting every sector of American public life.

The Chinese government has denied allegations of state-sponsored theft, according to media reports,

Following is the Department of Justice press release:

On the two-year anniversary of the Attorney General’s China Initiative, the Department continues its significant focus on the Initiative’s goals and announced substantial progress during the past year in disrupting and deterring the wide range of national security threats posed by the policies and practices of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government.

"In the last year, the Department has made incredible strides in countering the systemic efforts by the PRC to enhance its economic and military strength at America’s expense," said Attorney General William P. Barr.  "While much work remains to be done, the Department is committed to holding to account those who would steal, or otherwise illicitly obtain, the U.S. intellectual capital that will propel the future."

"The Chinese Communist Party’s theft of sensitive information and technology isn't a rumor or a baseless accusation.  It’s very real, and it’s part of a coordinated campaign by the Chinese government, which the China Initiative is helping to disrupt," said FBI Director Christopher Wray.  "The FBI opens a new China-related counterintelligence case nearly every 10 hours and we’ll continue our aggressive efforts to counter China’s criminal activity."

Established in November 2018, the Initiative identified a number of goals for the Department, ranging from increased focus on the investigation and prosecution of trade secret theft and economic espionage, to better countering threats posed by Chinese foreign investment and supply chain vulnerabilities. 

Prioritize investigations of economic espionage and trade secret theft

The Initiative prioritizes use of the Department’s core tool, criminal investigation and prosecution, to counter economic espionage and other forms of trade secret theft.  In the past year, the Department charged three economic espionage cases (in which the trade secret theft was intended to benefit the Chinese government), bringing the total to five since the China Initiative was first announced.  Overall, since the Initiative was announced, we have charged more than 10 cases in which the trade secret theft had some alleged nexus to China, and we obtained guilty pleas of three defendants in those cases over the past year.

To take one example, the Department announced the China Initiative on the same day that it unsealed criminal charges against United Microelectronics (UMC), the Chinese state-owned enterprise Fujian Jinhua, and several individual defendants, for economic espionage that victimized Micron Technology, Inc., a leading U.S. semiconductor company. 

"The United Microelectronics case is a glaring example of the PRC’s ‘rob, replicate, and replace’ strategy, in which it robs a U.S. institution of its intellectual capital, replicates the stolen technology, and then endeavors to replace the U.S. institution on the Chinese and then the global market," said John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.  "Thanks to the dedication and diligence of prosecutors and FBI agents, UMC pleaded guilty to criminal trade secret theft and agreed to pay a fine of $60 million, the second largest fine in a trade secret case, and to cooperate in the pending prosecution of its co-defendants."

The National Counterintelligence Task Force, co-led by the FBI, launched its first major campaign in 2020, devoted to protecting U.S. technology and research from the Chinese government and its proxies.  This is a further step in the FBI’s and Department’s efforts to enlist all appropriate partners in ensuring integrity in government-funded programs and defeating economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.

Develop an enforcement strategy for non-traditional collectors

At the outset, the Department identified academia as one of our most vulnerable sectors, because its traditions of openness, and the importance of international exchanges to the free flow of ideas, leave it vulnerable to PRC exploitation.  The Department has pursued a two-pronged strategy of raising awareness on campuses of the threats posed by China (and the importance of implementing a security program to detect them) and prosecuting researchers who have deliberately deceived authorities about their ties to China, which deprives institutions of the ability to screen for conflicts of interest and commitment, or otherwise exploited their access.

For example, the PRC has used talent programs to encourage the transfer of technical expertise from the United States, and elsewhere in the world, to benefit the PRC’s economic and military development.  Talent recruits generally sign contracts with the PRC sponsor-entity that obligate them to produce scientific outputs; to publish the results of their work in the name of the PRC beneficiary; to allow the PRC beneficiary to assert intellectual property rights over their outputs; and to recruit other researchers into the programs, among other obligations.  

In exchange, the talent recruits may receive lucrative compensation packages, prestigious titles, and custom-built laboratories. 

“While membership in these talent programs is not per se illegal, and the research itself may not always be protected as a trade secret, we know the PRC uses these plans, such as the well-known Thousand Talents Program, as a vehicle to recruit individuals with access to U.S. government-funded research to work in the interest of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Adam S. Hickey, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division. 

The Initiative brings together resources from across the Department, including the National Security, Criminal, Tax, and the Civil Divisions to address this unique challenge fairly and effectively.  In the past year, Department prosecutors have brought fraud, false statements, tax, smuggling and other charges against ten academics affiliated with research institutions across the country.  To date, prosecutors have obtained convictions in three of those cases. 

This year, the FBI and Department prosecutors also exposed six individuals, studying in the United States, found to be connected to People’s Liberation Army military institutes, who concealed their affiliations from the State Department when applying for research visas to study at U.S. universities.  In one of those cases, the Department alleged that a PLA officer was being tasked by superiors in the PRC to obtain information that would benefit PLA operations.  In another case, a PLA medical researcher stands accused of following orders to observe lab operations at a U.S. university, which received funding from the U.S. government, in order to replicate those operations in the PRC. 

In each of the cases, the defendants are accused of concealing their PLA affiliations in order to obtain visas that allowed them to travel to the United States.  After the FBI conducted interviews this summer that led to charges in those cases and the State Department closed the PRC’s Houston Consulate, a large number of undeclared, PLA-affiliated Chinese researchers fled the United States.

Those six examples are just part of the interagency effort to protect academia and taxpayer-funded research.  The FBI and Department have been collaborating with federal grant-making agencies, the Joint Committee on the Research Environment, the major academic associations, the Academic Security and Counter Exploitation working group, and other appropriate entities, as well as hundreds of individual universities nationwide. 

Counter malicious cyber activity

The Department continues to expose and disrupt efforts by the PRC government to steal our intellectual property and our personally identifiable information (PII) through computer intrusions.  During the past year, we charged hackers working for the People’s Liberation Army with the 2017 Equifax intrusion and others associated with the Ministry of State Security (MSS) in relation to global computer intrusion campaigns targeting biomedical companies conducting COVID-19-related research, engineering firms, and software makers.  

One such MSS case resulted in the arrest of two conspirators in Malaysia.  Two of these cases highlighted China’s development into a safe harbor for criminal hackers who also work for the PRC.  The Department disrupted these cyber threats in coordination with the private sector, using legal process to seize control of hacking infrastructure while the private sector removed other infrastructure from their platforms. 

In May, the FBI, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also issued a public announcement to raise awareness of the threat to COVID-19 research by PRC-affiliated cyber actors and offer advice on better protecting that research from thefts.

Counter malign foreign influence

The Department has used the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”), which requires those acting to influence public policy and opinion on behalf of a foreign individual or entity, to improve transparency and expose China’s foreign influence efforts.  Over the past year, the Department opened a record number of FARA investigations overall and doubled the number of new registrants and new foreign principals registering annually as of 2016.  That includes obtaining a record number of registrations from Chinese media companies.  

The Department also notified a registered Chinese media company that its filings were deficient because they failed to fully disclose its activity in the United States and failed to properly label its informational materials.  The media entity remedied those deficiencies shortly thereafter. 

Through its outreach efforts to universities, the Department has highlighted the need to protect foreign students studying in the United States from coercive efforts by the Communist Party to censor the freedom of thought and expression that all students here should enjoy.

In late 2019, the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force formally established a new unit devoted specifically to understanding and defeating the malign foreign influence threat from the Chinese government and its proxies.

Counter foreign intelligence activities

The Department has achieved a number of successes in the last year in countering China’s foreign intelligence activities.  China has been targeting former members of the U.S. intelligence community for recruitment, and the Department has been holding accountable individuals who succumb to their efforts.  In November 2019, a former CIA case officer was sentenced to 19 years in prison for conspiring to deliver national defense information to the PRC.  In August 2020, another former CIA officer who had been tasked by the PRC was arrested on the same charge — the fourth former intelligence officer charged in the last three years for similar conduct. 

The Department is particularly focused on disrupting the PRC government from using career networking and social media sites to target Americans, as well as holding those accountable who hide behind fake profiles to co-opt individuals on behalf of the PRC.  As one part of this effort, the FBI, in partnership with the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, created an educational film, "The Nevernight Connection," which was released online in September 2020 to educate the public about the Chinese intelligence services’ use of social media to spot and recruit persons of interest, especially current or former security clearance holders.

In March 2020, Xuehua (Edward) Peng was sentenced to 48 months in prison, and ordered to pay a $30,000 fine, for acting as an agent of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) in connection with a scheme to conduct pickups known as “dead drops” and transport Secure Digital cards containing classified information from a source in the United States to the MSS operatives in China. 

In October 2020, Jun Wei Yeo was sentenced to 14 months in prison for acting within the United States as an agent of the MSS recruiting Americans, including U.S. military and government employees with high-level clearances. Yeo concealed his MSS affiliation from his American targets and used career networking sites and a false consulting firm to lure them to write papers which he ultimately passed to his MSS handlers.

In October 2020, eight defendants were charged with conspiring to act in the United States as illegal agents of the PRC, six of whom also face related charges of conspiring to commit interstate and international stalking.  According to the complaint, the defendants participated in an international campaign to threaten, harass, surveil and intimidate a resident of New Jersey and his family in order to force them to return to the PRC as part of an international effort by the PRC government known as "Operation Fox Hunt" and "Operation Skynet."

In furtherance of the operation, the PRC government targets Chinese individuals living in foreign countries that the PRC government alleges have committed crimes under PRC law and seeks to repatriate them to the PRC to face charges, rather than rely upon proper forms of international law enforcement cooperation.

Foreign investment reviews and telecommunications security

Beyond criminal enforcement, the Department worked to protect our national assets from national security risks posed by entities, subject to PRC influence, that seek to invest in U.S. companies or integrate into our supply chains. 

In April, the Department assumed the permanent chair of the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector, established by the President through Executive Order (EO), in 2020.  This organization, also known as "Team Telecom," is an interagency group that reviews telecommunications, submarine cable landing, wireless, broadcast license, and other applications referred by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to identify and address risks to national security and law enforcement.  In the first 90 days after the Executive Order, the Department led Team Telecom to resolve more than half of the cases then pending review.

Team Telecom recommended that the FCC revoke and terminate the international telecommunications licenses held by the U.S. subsidiary of a PRC state-owned telecommunications company, China Telecom, the first revocation ever recommended by Team Telecom on national security grounds.  Team Telecom also recommended that the FCC partially deny a submarine cable application, to the extent it sought a direct connection between the United States and Hong Kong. 

Following the President’s 2019 Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain, the Department has worked with the Commerce Department to develop regulations implementing the EO and has identified vulnerable areas of critical infrastructure that are ripe for investigation under the EO.

The Department also worked to implement the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), which improved the authorities of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).  During the previous year, the Department co-led a record number of significant CFIUS matters, on an annualized basis, including the investigation of the acquisition of a U.S. hotel management software company by a Chinese company, which the President prohibited, for just the sixth time in CFIUS history.  Under FIRRMA, the FBI continued to provide analytical assistance to support CFIUS’s decision-making and identify high-risk non-notified transactions.

With its increased resources, NSD has played a significant role in CFIUS enforcement, leading the Committee to assess just the second penalty in its history, for failing to secure sensitive personal data in violation of a 2018 interim CFIUS order.  NSD also dedicated personnel to identify transactions of concern that were not voluntarily filed with CFIUS and developed a program to identify bankruptcy cases that could implicate national security concerns.  The bankruptcy program helps to protect U.S. assets from predatory acquisitions, including PRC acquisitions that could impact our national security, which is particularly important in light of the economic impact of COVID-19.

Education and outreach

The success of the China Initiative is not measured by criminal cases and administrative actions alone, however.  Outreach to businesses and academia is critical to helping America’s national assets better protect themselves.  For that reason, the Department disseminated outreach presentations for use by U.S. Attorneys in their Districts, which have been deployed at various events.  

The FBI sustained its engagement with the private sector through various programs, and it developed and disseminated an innovative Academia Field Guide to support focused outreach by its academic outreach coordinators in all 56 field offices.  In the coming year, the Department, through the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, will continue to expand our partnerships outside the federal government, because the support of the American people is critical to our success.  All of our efforts are on their behalf.     

The Attorney General commends the professionals throughout the Department, including those who work at Main Justice, the FBI, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices around the country, who are committed to meeting the goals of the China Initiative and encourage them to redouble their efforts in the upcoming year.