This afternoon, the Biden administration sounded a loud warning note to China in a Justice Department press conference announcing the indictments of 13 Chinese nationals in three separate criminal cases. Attorney General Merrick Garland accused the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) of engaging in three distinct illegal schemes, across multiple US jurisdictions.
In the first scheme, described in an indictment just unsealed in the Eastern District of New York, agents of the PRC worked to disrupt prosecution of Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Toward that end, they paid some $61,000 to a government official for what they thought was inside information on the prosecution. But in fact, this official was a double agent, handing them worthless documents specially crafted for the purpose. SEXY!
In the second case, federal prosecutors in New Jersey have charged four Chinese nationals, including three Ministry of State Security (MSS) intelligence officers, with conspiracy to act as unregistered agents of a foreign government through a fake think tank at a university in Qingdao.
In a press release, prosecutors described “a wide-ranging and systematic effort to target and recruit individuals to act on behalf of the PRC in the United States with requests to provide information, materials, equipment, and assistance to the Chinese government in ways that would further China’s intelligence objectives.” They allege that the defendants used gifts and trips to China to extract information and technology from American academics, and, during the press conference, accused the Chinese agents of “attempts to stop First Amendment activity embarrassing to [the Chinese] government.”
In the third case, back in the Eastern District of New York, seven Chinese nationals including five government officials were charged with orchestrating a scheme to force opponents of the ruling Communist Party to return to China to face government retribution. As part of a plan announced in 2014 by the Chinese government and labeled “Operation Foxhunt,” the conspirators harassed targets and their families, both in the US and in China, by, among other things, threatening family members at home in China and filing false Interpol “red notices.” They are charged with acting as unregistered foreign agents, interstate harassment, and money laundering.
FBI Director Christopher Wray was unsparing in his criticism of the Chinese government’s malign influence on the national stage, which makes it easy to recruit “partners to the fight,” particularly in academia:
For example, they see the type of CCP hypocrisy on display in our Fox Hunt case today — yet another case where Chinese government officials and co-conspirators mercilessly harassed a naturalized U.S. citizen to try to force him to return to China against his will. They accused the victim in this case of embezzling money, but two of the subjects who targeted him—two of the defendants charged today—are themselves actually involved in a scheme to launder millions of dollars. As if that weren’t enough evidence that the real purpose of their operation was political, they gave their victim a deadline to return by: the 20th CCP Congress earlier this month. They’re focused on repression, not law enforcement.
Coming immediately after yesterday’s Communist Party congress in Beijing at which Xi Jinping consolidated his power and announced the current membership of the politburo, this press conference could only be interpreted as a warning to an ascendant China not to fuck with the US.
Indeed, Wray was unequivocal on this point:
We also see a coordinated effort across the Chinese government to lie, cheat, and steal their way into unfairly dominating entire technology sectors, putting competing U.S. companies out of business.
As I’ve pointed out before, their economic assault and their rights violations are part of the same problem. They both flout the rule of law. And one of the purposes of the Chinese government’s repression is to make it easier to steal our innovation. They try to silence anyone who fights back against their theft—companies, politicians, individuals—just as they try to silence anyone who fights back against their other aggressions.
Which poses a bit of a problem for the Republican Party, which has spent years pretending President Joe Biden is soft on China, despite recent moves by his administration to isolate China’s tech sector and pivot to containing the country’s economic rise, rather than depending on it to forever supply us with cheap, disposable consumer goods.
Conservative outlets such as Fox and the rabidly anti-CCP Epoch Times have largely ignored the announcement, while Mike Cernovich, who is what passes for a thought leader in today’s Republican Party, tweeted, “Garland filed huge case against Communist China spies. I’m really confused. This is a REAL criminal case involving attacks on America. Why would he bring it? Already worried about Republicans taking control of Congress. Doesn’t want impeached.”
Presumably this will become GOP orthodoxy by close of business today. Either that, or they’ll pretend it never happened and air stolen pictures of Hunter Biden’s cock in hopes we all forget that Joe Biden is doing a hell of a good job.
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