FBI opens a China-connected investigation every 10 hours

 first published on 10-26-20      F.B.I. director Christopher Wray said the agency opens a China-connected investigation every 10 hours and that, of nearly 5,000 active counterintelligence cases in the U.S., almost half are related to China.

Importantly, members of the various groups identified by Newsweek, most of them ethnic Chinese, may not be aware of the organization's ties to the China party-state. Individuals may join for a sense of community or a business opportunity. Despite that, the groups may compete to be close to the Chinese embassy and its consulates hoping to gain status and favors, says Yaqiu Wang, an analyst for Human Rights Watch in New York City. China's diplomatic system, in turn, connects through them to local Chinese-language communities.

Some groups assist in technology transfer—acquiring technology developed by U.S. companies for use by Chinese companies—a crucial goal of the CCP's influencing and interfering. The system also permeates the Chinese-language media in the U.S, shaping the information environment.

Newsweek has identified the following types of organizations as affiliated with the United Front throughout the U.S.: at least 83 Chinese hometown associations for immigrants from the same place in China; 10 "Chinese Aid Centers;" 32 Chambers of Commerce; 13 Chinese-language media brands; about half of the 70 associations for Chinese professionals in the U.S.; 38 organizations promoting the "peaceful reunification" of China and Taiwan; five "friendship organizations" and 129 other groups engaged in a range of activities such as education and culture. In addition, there are 265 Chinese Student and Scholar Associations for the approximately 300,000 Chinese students in the U.S.  These are connected to CPC politics, often via Chinese diplomats, usually the education secretary in a consulate.

The groups were identified by evaluating crossover membership, regular joint activities, events indicating ideological alignment, high-level meetings that can only be obtained by being part of a CPC-trusted system and by crosschecking names, positions and cooperative events described in hundreds of Chinese-language government and party documents and Chinese state media reports as well as reports by the groups themselves. The level of influence and interference activity ranges from simple efforts to promote a positive view of China to outright espionage.

The latter was the case in late September when a New York City policeman of Tibetan origin from China, a naturalized American citizen and army reservist, was arrested and charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.  His handler in the Chinese consulate in New York City worked for the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture, which is part of the United Front, according to charges laid out by the Department of Justice.  Allegedly the policeman spied on Chinese citizens living in the New York area to help assess their potential as intelligence sources and provided Chinese officials with access to the NYPD through invitations to police events.

Start digging, and the number of groups in the U.S. with ties to the United Front seem endless. The Committee of 100 (C100), a New York-based advocacy group for Americans of Chinese origin that was founded nearly 30 years ago with the help of Henry Kissinger, is another, according to multiple reports in Chinese-language media and United Front organizations.  https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:k1fi-u2R304J:https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/600-us-groups-linked-chinese-communist-party-influence-effort-ambition-beyond+&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

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