The Chinese government
allegedly planted secret agents to intimidate dissidents living in the country,
including a congressional candidate
By Sophia Yan, China Correspondent 17 March 2022 • 4:36pm
Xiong Yan, who is running
for Congress in New York, is thought to be one of the victims who was targeted
Chinese secret agents hired
a private investigator to beat up a US congressional candidate as part of a
campaign to stalk and harass anti-Beijing activists, US federal prosecutors
claim.
The Chinese government
allegedly planted spies in the US to intimidate Chinese dissidents living in
the country.
In one case, Chinese
national Qiming Lin, 59, hired a private investigator in New York to concoct a
scandal to undermine a congressional candidate who had participated in the 1989
Tiananmen Square demonstrations as a student, prosecutors said.
Qiming Lin is accused of
hiring a private investigator in New York to concoct a scandal
That person is a US
military veteran who was born in China and later became a naturalised American.
The candidate wasn’t named in court documents, but fits the description of
Xiong Yang, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to run for a district in
New York.
Mr Lin even suggested that
the private investigator physically attack the candidate, and “beat him until
he cannot run for election”, according to prosecutors.
However, the PI was
cooperating with the FBI and fed the information back to them.
The claims were revealed as
five people were charged with criminal offences on Wednesday, accused of
extending the reach of the Chinese Communist Party beyond its borders in an
effort to silence critical voices.
Those charged were also
accused of collecting information on activists who were later arrested by
Chinese authorities.
Three of the suspects face
a maximum sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison.
The US Justice Department
said the agents worked for China’s Ministry of State Security, which “executes
the Chinese government’s efforts to limit free speech, attack dissidents, and
preserve the power of the Communist Party”, said Alan E Kohler Jr, assistant
director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
'National security threat'
“When it exports those
actions overseas, it violates the fundamental sovereignty of the United States
and becomes a national security threat,” he said.
A separate case focuses on
Shujun Wang, 73, who prosecutors say was tasked with collecting information
about advocates for Taiwan, as well as Uyghurs and Tibetans in the US.
Prosecutors said that Mr
Wang - who is accused of posing as a pro-democracy activist while secretly
working as a mole in the community - also passed on information about prominent
Hong Kong democracy activists who were later arrested by China in 2019 and
2020.
In yet another case, prosecutors
said three individuals were charged with spying on pro-democracy Chinese
dissidents living in the US – including installing surveillance cameras and GPS
devices to track them – and working on smear campaigns to discredit them.
A Telegraph investigation
in 2020 revealed that the Chinese government was intimidating Hong Kongers and
Uyghurs living in the UK, some of whom have campaigned against Beijing’s
repression.
Chinese nationals,
including those living in Australia, have also told of being intimidated by
Chinese security while abroad.
Those living in China
critical of the government and its policies are also frequently harassed and
detained as a way to silence them. Some of China’s early whistle-blowers when
the coronavirus first erupted in Wuhan remain disappeared.
“The complaints unsealed
today reveal the outrageous and dangerous lengths to which the PRC [China]
government’s secret police and these defendants have gone to attack the rule of
law and freedom in New York City and elsewhere in the United States,” said
Breon Peace, US attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
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