
FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities - meri_dian
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article199929429.html
======
GuiA
Reminds me of this story from last year:

 _But those [Chinese] students often bring to campus something else from home:
the watchful eyes and occasionally heavy hand of the Chinese government,
manifested through its ties to many of the 150-odd chapters of the Chinese
Students and Scholars Associations.

The groups have worked in tandem with Beijing to promote a pro-Chinese agenda
and tamp down anti-Chinese speech on Western campuses. At Columbia a decade
ago, the club mobilized students to protest a presentation about human rights
violations in China, urging them to “resolutely defend the honor and dignity
of the Motherland.” At Duke, the group was accused of inciting a harassment
campaign in 2008 against a Chinese student who tried to mediate between sides
in a Tibet protest. More recently in Durham, England, the group acted at the
behest of the Chinese government to censor comments at a forum on China-Hong
Kong relations._

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/chinese-students-
weste...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/chinese-students-western-
campuses-china-influence.html)

Also reminds me of this recent news, of Mercedes Benz made to apologize to
China for posting a quote (in English) by the Dalai Lama on Instagram, a
platform banned in China:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/07/mercedes-
apologis...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/07/mercedes-apologises-
china-quoting-dalai-lama/)

EDIT: damn, downvotes are coming fast for this one. I wonder why :^)

~~~
BeetleB
I'm torn.

On the one hand, I do think people should be aware of it. On the other hand, I
don't see the fuss. What you describe is the norm for many groups - not just
the Chinese.

>At Columbia a decade ago, the club mobilized students to protest a
presentation about human rights violations in China, urging them to
“resolutely defend the honor and dignity of the Motherland.”

This is normal for many groups and many issues. On my campus, any issue
involving the Palestinians or Israelis would have lots of groups protesting
and putting a fair amount of pressure to get the university to intercede and
cancel the speaker. There was once suspicion that the Turkish government was
trying to influence the views on their conflict with the Kurds. Many/most
Turkish students in my time were on government scholarships, and I do know for
a fact that they did ask students to spy on one another - and risk losing
funding for their education if they did not get in line. For many
international student organizations, it was considered normal to request for
funding from their embassy to host events promoting their culture (including
informational materials, videos, etc).

So yes, the Chinese are doing it, just as everyone else is. This is not even
considered controversial on campuses. Religious groups do likewise. As do
political groups. What's so special about the Chinese?

The article does a fairly poor job of describing of giving details/examples.
What have these groups done that makes them stand out compared to the norm?

~~~
GuiA
You make a reasonable point.

That said, all the countries you mention have strong track records of human
rights violations. So really China's not surrounded by good company on that
issue, and maybe the takeaway should be more that we should be cautious
regarding these countries and how they might try to influence discourse on US
campuses rather than saying "well a bunch of corrupt governments are all doing
it, what's the big deal?".

As far as "what's so special about China"\- the sheer volume of its population
(and thus of its population studying abroad) as well as the fact that it is
(or is close to being, depending on how you want to draw your lines) the
world's leading economy are good starting points.

I'm French, went to grad school in the US, and did not see any of my
countrymen protest on campus because the history department was teaching about
the war of Algeria and they weren't happy about it (nor did I see Catalonian
students protest that the geography department treated Spain as a single
country... you get the point).

~~~
BeetleB
>and maybe the takeaway should be more that we should be cautious regarding
these countries and how they might try to influence discourse on US campuses

Which I agree with, which is why I said I do think people should be aware of
it. But beyond merely being aware of it, I'm not sure there's much else to do.
When you say "we should be cautious", what do you mean? How can we be any more
cautious?

Ultimately, the situation exists because the US has strong laws on free speech
and freedom. It should be a given that various groups will exploit these laws.
If they are using students for propaganda purposes, the only useful response I
can think of is likely counter-propaganda. Personally, I am wary of just
saying "Beware of Chinese propaganda". I've seen that tactic used in various
times in my life and the result has _always_ been the equivalent of "Let's not
trust what this person is saying because he is Chinese and we should beware of
the Chinese" (i.e. many people heed the warnings and then blanket distrust the
whole group of people).

Which is why I complained about the article: It's mostly "Beware of the
Chinese on campuses" and not "Look at all these (specific) problems that have
arisen because of the Chinese on campuses".

------
DanAndersen
During my undergrad university days (at the University of Utah), I took some
Mandarin classes. There was a local Confucius Institute which provided various
free materials in Chinese to the campus library. The extent of my direct
contact with them was receiving a couple hundred dollars for doing well in a
Mandarin speech contest they held for my class.

It was obvious that there was a certain propaganda aspect to this outreach
effort; the reading materials provided of course didn't go into any potential
negatives of the Beijing government, etc. Very much in line with the CCTV news
network. My Mandarin teacher was Taiwanese and so I think that was good for me
in that I wasn't getting all my exposure to Chinese from a single source.

I would not be surprised at all to learn that Chinese government operatives
were using these various state-funded educational agencies for gaining
intelligence and promoting their ideology. I assume the US is doing the same
thing. It's a long game, with assets being put into place sometimes decades in
advance. A healthy dose of cynicism is always important when dealing with
state-funded groups; it's rare that countries invest such resources just out
of the goodness of their altruistic hearts.

~~~
tptacek
Why would you expect the Confucius Institute to provide information on the
negatives of Chinese government? It's a Chinese culture organization, and it's
directly affiliated with the government of China.

~~~
jdavis703
Voice of America, and other media provided by the U.S. International
Broadcasting Bureau provide a balanced perspective on the U.S. If there are
anti-government situations going on, they cover it. Just take a look at the
headlines about Trump on voanews.com vs. the headlines about Xi on
xinhuanet.com.

~~~
labster

        > GOP Women Frustrated by Trump's Approach to Abuse Charges
        > 2018 Congressional Elections Loom as Referendum on Trump
        > House Panel Launches Probe into Trump Aide's Employment Amid Domestic Abuse Allegations
    

Oh, wow, point taken.

I always forget about VOA because the government doesn't promote it inside the
United States. BBC and even NHK have a much higher profile than Voice of
America does in America.

~~~
stcredzero
_I always forget about VOA because the government doesn 't promote it inside
the United States._

Openness and fairness are also political weapons. You know your side has lost,
if it reaches a state of "evaporative cooling" such that it's incapable of
using such weapons.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/)

------
Cyberdog
Australia has of late had its own issues involving accusations of Chinese
espionage as well as good old-fashioned palm-greasing:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Dastyari#Chinese_influence...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Dastyari#Chinese_influence_scandal)

If the US starts clamping down on this sort of thing, expect China to accuse
the US government of xenophobia, since of course "we'd like to stop so many
Chinese agents and toadies from infiltrating our governmental and educational
systems" translates to "we hate Chinese people" in Mandarin.

EDIT: To be clear to any Chinese agents reading this, my issue is not so much
with the spying and soft power campaigns so much as it is the unfair
accusations of racism.

~~~
mc32
Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the
racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts
of political interference and other meddling...

Alas, they cannot make such accusations. At most they can use "xenophobia".

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
> Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw
> the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all
> sorts of political interference and other meddling...

I assume this is why everyone turns a blind eye to the elephant in the room
when it comes to foreign influence of American affairs - Israel.

~~~
mc32
That one's a bit more complicated. Our interests intersect with theirs along
many axes. And they have lots of lobbyists in DC and Americans of
Israeli/Jewish heritage donate lots to DC politicians along Israeli policy
lines. People of Russian heritage on the other hand typically have opposing
views to that of Moscow in many areas, so they are not as aligned, if at all;
in addition, many people of Russians descent have Jewish heritage as well...
So you know, they doubly oppose Moscow.

~~~
pobo
this is a typical narrative of double standard.

------
noetic_techy
And we continue to tolerate those who wouldn't tolerate us...

Even the Chinese have a word for these people who naively defend and turn a
blind eye to this sort of thing: "Baizou".

From Wikipedia:

"The word baizuo is, according to political scientist Zhang Chenchen, a
Chinese word that ridicules Western "liberal elites". He further defined the
word "baizuo" with the definition "People who only care about topics such as
immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment" and “have no sense of real
problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate
for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral
superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent
that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of
multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the
idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who
“pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”.[7] The term has also
been used to refer to perceived double standards of the Western media, such as
the alleged bias on reporting about Islamist attacks in Xinjiang."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baizuo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baizuo)

~~~
AdeptusAquinas
Sounds fake to me. Any actual Chinese to confirm this? Just going by the "they
believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free
riders”" comment; China is a _communist country_ , its about as far on the
spectrum left past welfare state as you can go.

~~~
gowld
You can reach a higher level of understanding if you stop trying to cram
multi-dimensional politics into a one-dimensional spectrum.

China is State Capitalist, not Communist. The government doesn't tell people
what jobs to do and provide them with their home, food, and consumer goods

------
PricelessValue
Isn't this well known fact? It isn't a secret that the chinese, along with the
israelis, russians, british, french, japanese, koreans, canadians and even the
saudis have operatives in academia, government, business, etc.

And of course we have operatives in all those countries as well.

~~~
txsh
Every country spies on every other country. But not every country steals
foreign technology for its companies.

~~~
ComodoHacker
Yeah, only those who are capable.

~~~
prklmn
And need to.

------
tptacek
This isn't a new controversy, for what it's worth. For example:

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/29/chicago-
facul...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/29/chicago-faculty-
object-their-campuss-confucius-institute)

One way to summarize: colleges accept Chinese-sponsored Confucius Institutes
as a way of bolstering Chinese language programs, which are valuable in the
marketplace. But if you let China fund your Chinese language programs, the
instructors you end up with will to some extent suppress discussion of
politically-sensitive topics. And, of course, college staff probably also see
this as a labor dispute: colleges that accept CI-sponsorship are in a sense
outsourcing the work of professors.

------
zengid
That would explain why my school's international students have such nice,
James Bond-esk, cars.

~~~
olyjohn
Eh... I worked at a community college whose bread and butter was international
students. Lots of them had really expensive cars. Not sure why China would
send hundreds of operatives to infiltrate a community college and then pay to
put them in flashy cars. It's more likely just rich parents.

~~~
mywittyname
Even the ones driving 15 year old Chryslers likely have wealthy parents.
University is absurdly expensive for international students of no particular
note. On the order of $100k/yr in tuition for a no-name state school.

What's another $50k when you're spending half a million dollars to educate
your kid?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Universities can be expensive, but community colleges typically aren’t. Most
of the fuerdai in community colleges are probably studying English to get into
a university. Even though they are rich, they won’t turn down a good deal when
they can get one (and since luxury cars are so much cheaper in the USA than
China, they are considered good deals as well).

~~~
saagarjha
Community colleges are significantly more expensive for international
students; at the local ones nearby you're looking at paying 4-5x more.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Sure, but the base is low.

~~~
saagarjha
It's on the order of $10,000-15,000. That's just slightly under the price of a
university education for in-state students.

------
davesque
Honestly, is this news? Is it anything new that there are people roaming
around university campuses that intend to make inroads into young,
impressionable minds?

When I was at university, I remember there was an organization called
"Horizons" which would show up to a number of social events and invite people
to their building located near campus for free dinner. Of course, they were a
Christian organization and were keen to sell their religion in this way.

I remember thinking it was a bit disingenuous but mostly just saw it as being
silly. Students would go to get free dinner but seemed mostly capable of
avoiding being indoctrinated. I think people such as those from the Confucius
Institute should be regarded similarly. That is, they should not be seen as a
real threat.

What concerns me is that giving attention to these things in the wrong way
will only encourage people to develop a xenophobic attitude towards foreign
students. I don't think there's legitimate cause for concern here. The overall
culture and message of academia -- that one should investigate for one's self
and see -- still seems intact and should be capable of standing up on its own,
even if some seek to infiltrate it with their own agendas.

~~~
bjourne
It's news because it's all allegations with no evidence. Tfa says there are
several hundred thousand Chinese students in the US. Not a single one has been
shown to be a Chinese operative.

~~~
davesque
Actually, I agree with you there.

------
ilaksh
Personally I think some Mandarin should become compulsory in the US because I
think basic lack of communication is the greatest security risk. The biggest
problem to me is the Chinese suppression of dissent and overcentralization.
And since there are so many Chinese people it seems almost inevitable that
these tendencies will encroach upon or at least rub off on the US.

I assume at this point most universities realize any work they feel should be
closed is not so if they have Chinese students involved.

I wonder if it might be possible to start requiring study of decentralization
and free speech topics as general requirements for graduation.

~~~
logfromblammo
I got about six weeks of Mandarin in middle school. Not enough teachers are
available to offer it in most high schools. If you wanted to _really_ learn a
second language before university, it was either French or Spanish. Like a
chump, I chose French, because the teacher was reputed to give out less
homework than the Spanish teacher. I've never even been to Quebec or Haiti.
Quelle dommage; ce n'est pas trop utile pour moi. Tant pis. I can't even
remember all the conjugations and tenses for _etre_.

You make Mandarin mandatory in the US, and you'll just end up with a bunch of
people who wasted their time learning a language they will never use. And
maybe some who will try using it at a Chinese-American restaurant only to
learn that everyone there speaks Cantonese, or a lesser-used Chinese dialect.

~~~
ilaksh
True if it's not used it will be a waste. But the thing that worries me is the
resource contention between the countries. So maybe we should have a
preemptive "war on division" to try to integrate the cultures before our
differences come to a violent head.

~~~
logfromblammo
Actual 2010 census said 3.8M Chinese-Americans in the US, or 1.2% of the
population. 2016 interim projection was 4.9M, or 1.5%. Granted, they are
largely concentrated in California, Washington, New York, and Illinois. But
it's still a significant population, and they can be found nearly everywhere
[that is worth emigrating to]. A large fraction of students at US universities
are Chinese nationals.

There are 100k Americans living in China (2/5 of them in Hong Kong), and a
trace quantity of naturalized American-Chinese, because the only practical way
for a white immigrant to gain Chinese citizenship is to marry a native.
Applicants without obvious Asian ancestry aren't likely to ever get _accepted_
, even if they do manage to get legally naturalized.

So which culture _should_ be expending greater efforts?

~~~
ilaksh
True. My theory on that is that it is due to racism inherent in the culture.
But hopefully it may not be quite as bad in the current generation. Anyway to
improve that aspect of their culture to me it is a similar problem of trying
to integrate the cultures -- we can't just force them to accept our ideas
without an exchange or understanding theirs. Unless you believe in the
traditional approach of war which to me is clearly a very stupid and self-
destructive path.

~~~
logfromblammo
My response, informed by the ~very realistic~ simulation called Civilization,
would be to send in missionaries and spies, to promote my culture, and send in
the diplomats to bribe them with the very technologies that made their wonders
and city improvements obsolete.

------
Clubber
If the federal government is so concerned about giving away R&D, they need to
do something about all the companies that freely give it away when they
offshore manufacturing to China and other countries. They've been doing it for
decades; the horse is already out of the barn. Not only that, he left the barn
30 years ago, and has recently died of old age.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Wow, this seems like straight-up racist fearmongering. The Chinese have
"infliltrated" our schools by _attending_ and starting culturally oriented
studies? What's wrong with setting up classes for studying Mandarin, the #1
most popular language on the planet?

~~~
rdtsc
What if these were Russians and the title was "FBI Says Russian Operatives..."
would you have said it's straight up racist fear-mongering?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach)

~~~
platinumrad
Not technically "racist" but in my opinion much of the treatment of Russia in
the media is highly prejudiced.

~~~
rdtsc
It's getting embarrassing at this point. It was a good PR campaign, but it has
run its course by now it seems.

[https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-
rewar...](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewarded-for-
false-news-about-russia-threat-while-public-is-deceived/)

------
Larrikin
I'm not sure I understand the argument of the article. Yes my graduate classes
have many Chinese students in them, but why exactly is it bad that they are
furthering their education and doing research in the US? The biggest issue I
see is that many of them want to live and work in the US after graduation, but
basically have to leave it up to luck in the visa lottery system.

~~~
allthenews
The FBI is not warning about students, but about government agents posing ad
students, I.E. "operatives".

Here, they have access to learn and potentially influence our culture from
within. Most importantly, if the FBI is correct and they exist, they most
likely do not have your interests in mind.

That said, I don't know how one would deal with this without causing McCarthy
style hysteria and sweeping up innocent students along with operatives.

~~~
geofft
> _The FBI is not warning about students, but about government agents posing
> ad students, I.E. "operatives"._

What is the distinction here?

I do not generally expect international students on a student visa, with no
intention of becoming citizens, to forget about the interests of their home
country and prioritize the interests of the country they're visiting. They're
here because the school is good, that's it.

~~~
allthenews
You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our
colleges? You dont think the U.S. is doing at least as much elsewhere? All
this talk of collusion with Russia recently doesn't bother you either if it is
true that a foreign power could have targeted our culture successfully to the
point that they threw an election in their favor?

Such sentiment would be naive. Particularly in an authoritarian nation
swarming with propaganda. There are plenty of children potentially willing to
dedicate themselves to the interests of the party, whether for perceived
virtue, or fear of retribution.

~~~
nkurz
_You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our
colleges?_

Well, no, I'm not sure what "espionage" would mean here? Does it mean stealing
information? Doubtful. Unionizing graduate students? Hard to believe.
Thwarting the education of others? Haven't seen it. While the Chinese may be
placing people into positions at American universities with the idea that they
might one day be useful, I'm not sure what would could as espionage. If
anything I'd guess the "operatives" would mostly be keeping track of the
activities of other Chinese students, and possibly serving as conduits for
more covert operatives, but I'm doubtful they are doing anything that would
legally qualify as espionage.

 _You dont think the U.S. is doing at least as much elsewhere?_

You'd have to be clearer about what the "as much" is, but I'm doubtful the US
is putting much effort into putting operatives into academic positions abroad.
Probably they want to open channels of communication with people who are
already there, but I'm doubtful we're doing anything particularly effective
involving "fake" students. And again, what would the goal of this be?

 _All this talk of collusion with Russia recently doesn 't bother you_

Seems worth investigating, but no, nothing I've heard so far bothers me. There
are lots of countries that have great interest in affecting/effecting US
policies, and I'd presume that Russia would be one of them. I'm doubtful they
were particularly effective in influencing an election, though, or even that
they were the country with the greatest influence. This is the place where I
assume the US is doing much more with regard to other country's elections,
possibly with greater impact.

 _Particularly in an authoritarian nation swarming with propaganda._

I don't know your politics well enough to know if you mean China, Russia, or
the US here? If you point is that there likely exist Chinese students who are
willing to do what the Chinese government asks them in return for being
allowed to study abroad, then sure. But I'd guess that most of what is being
asked is "Learn everything they will teach you and then come home and build a
better China", and I think that's a good thing?

~~~
allthenews
If you had a long term plan to destabilize a nation, and wanted to understand
how best to do it, don't you think it would be useful to send seemingly
innocent students to gather intelligence in political hotbeds like
universities?

After all, these students are future leaders. Understanding how to manipulate
them or weaken them and their futures, or how to sow divisiveness amongst them
or other Americans...

Wouldn't such information make it easier to at least, say, pose plausibly as
influential "trolls" with relevant cultural content on the internet?

Just as in software, one doesn't necessarily need to anticipate a specific
threat to recognize attack surface.

~~~
geofft
And as with software, sometimes part of the intended purpose of the software
inherently exposes you to threats, and saying "Shut down the threat" means
shutting down the software. The easiest way to prevent people from defacing
Wikipedia is to make it not a wiki. The easiest way to keep your computer
secure is to unplug it from the network.

Having foreign students attend our colleges is something that we have long
recognized is good for our country and for the world. Obviously it's an attack
surface too, in the same way that Wikipedia's "edit" button is an attack
surface. But if we want to actually maintain the policies and goals that led
us to deciding that we want foreign students to attend our colleges, we need
to be clear about why these particular foreign students are different.

------
monksy
That being said, the Chinese do have a term called: shan zhai which deals with
copyrighting/conferfiting. While I'm not endorcing it, it does have some
cultural roots.

The strange parts guy explained it some in this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdKV6x13cz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdKV6x13cz8)

~~~
jobu
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai)

 _" Historically, "shanzhai" is sometimes used as a metaphor to describe
bandits who oppose and evade the corrupted authority to perform deeds they see
as justified."_

Seems to be a bit like the Robin Hood mythos in western culture.

------
Khaine
In Australia, I am concerned with the Influence that China has over our
economy and how they are trying to influence our politics[1][2][3][4]

[1] [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-14/china-backlash-
austral...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-14/china-backlash-australia-
questions-of-political-interference/9258462)

[2] [http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-
service/the-...](http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-
art-of-influence-how-chinas-spies-operate-in-australia-20171203-gzxs06.html)

[3] [https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-
af...](https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-
affairs/chinese-influence-at-all-levels-of-australian-politics-says-clive-
hamilton/news-story/77be3faf6ab6f40738fc5d7d5897d78b)

[4] [https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/us-
politics/aust...](https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/us-
politics/australia-concerns-over-china-influence-spark-us-probe/news-
story/24c8a86697d0b37b4c5b6cb1b8312b55)

------
crb002
Duh. Ask Chinese grad student about it. They know who the active communist
party members are and who they don't speak their mind in front of about
affairs back home.

------
Cw67NTN8F
350,000 students and god know how many employees. FBI apparently has around
35,000 employees. I know not all the students are spies, and not all
suspicious ones get their own team of agents rights away, but looks like using
a Patriot Missile to kill a $150 drone. Time and time again.

------
IntronExon
The FBI never changes, does it? I’m not even saying that they’re wrong, but
stating it this way is just fodder for bin fires. It would be strange if China
and others didn’t do this, and strange if the US didn’t do it to them.

~~~
meowface
Yes, of course, but it would also be strange if the FBI didn't warn about it
when they identify it happening so that they can decrease the chance of
intelligence gatherers getting what they want.

~~~
IntronExon
I agree with the general principle you’re describing, it I’m unconvinced that
it applies in this case. Do you see what I mean? How does this warning empower
the public?

~~~
meowface
Perhaps if you're a researcher at a university and you get an interesting
business offer out of the blue in exchange for access to something (maybe data
you've gathered), you may be a bit more wary and consider if you're being
manipulated by another government's intelligence service.

~~~
gowld
Why do I care precisely who is manipulating me?

~~~
meowface
You shouldn't, of course. The FBI is just making people aware of this
particular campaign.

------
ilamont
The Chinese government has been very aggressive when it comes to media in
foreign countries. Via Foreign Policy
([http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/21/one-of-americas-
biggest-...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/21/one-of-americas-biggest-
chinese-language-newspapers-toes-beijings-party-line-china-influence-united-
front/)):

 _In recent years, and especially since Xi became president in 2012, the
Chinese government has sought various ways to increase its influence over
China’s 40 million-strong diaspora. The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, a
ministry specifically dedicated to the task, works to extend the party’s
reach, and the push has seen increasing success in New Zealand, Australia, and
Canada, where local ethnic Chinese organizations have begun to vocally push
for pro-Beijing policies._

For years The Washington Post ran a paid supplement from the China Daily
supplement, which was basically propaganda aimed at English speakers
([https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/of...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/official-
chinese-propaganda-now-online-from-the-wapo/70690/)):

 _For instance, the item above: "Stop Telling Us What We Should Do," with "we"
being China and the object of the imperative sentence being the nagging United
States. Or this one and this, clarifying how unfair it was for foreigners to
criticize China's "rare earths" exports policy. As a matter of fact, China's
"actions taken in the past few months, and those to be taken in the months to
come, are totally legitimate."_

In Canada, the CCP pushed Canadian officials to ban English-language reporters
from certain events featuring a Chinese official, and kick out a reporter from
a local Chinese newspaper that criticized China's human rights record
([https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/wynne-
agrees-t...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/wynne-agrees-to-
closed-events-with-chinese-after-communist-party-officials-
asked/article26696163/)).

In Hong Kong, the situation for media companies is much worse - agents
kidnapped book publishers and booksellers off the street in Hong Kong and
Thailand and shipped them to China for trial. Their crimes? Publishing or
selling unauthorized books about government officials
([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/17/china-
behaving...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/17/china-behaving-
like-gangster-state-with-bookseller-kidnap-say-hong-kong-politicians) ).

 _Lam, the 61-year-old manager of the Causeway Bay bookstore, claimed he had
spent months in solitary confinement in a cramped cell after being snatched by
a group of men as he entered mainland China in October 2015.

“They blindfolded me and put a cap on my head and basically bundled me up,”
Lam told reporters.

Lam claimed Chinese agents had forced him to confess to crimes he had not
committed during his detention. He said he had decided to speak out after
thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong to protest the
booksellers’ disappearances._

~~~
gowld
How deep does the rabbit hole go... The Atlantic runs an expose on WaPo's
China Daily advertorials, meanwhile The Atlantic runs Scientology advertorial

[https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/the-
sci...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/the-scientology-
ad/267198/)

------
rdiddly
Gosh it's getting so you have to worry that you might inadvertently be exposed
to _Chinese ideas_ now. Or that - God forbid - they'll steal all the _good
pure American_ ones. Like how to be a spendthrift blowhard with great hair.

------
perseusprime11
Is there any link to intellectual property theft? I always wonder about the
need to steal our intellectual property when China is doing so well with their
own startups and innovations.

------
senthil_rajasek
I wonder when the FBI would take similar action on white nationalists who
murder innocent immigrants.

------
vfulco
Regardless of what side(s) you take, it really is a blessing and benefit of
the US system, there can be an open, lively, and free discussion without
comments or commentors disappearing as if a phrase would topple an entire
system.

------
thrillgore
Here's where this statement is poisonous: I'm not sure if the FBI is actually
being honest, or if this is some Trumpist bullshit that confirms how racist
the current administration is.

Either way, I find it hard to believe. If its the former, its not shocking. If
its the latter, it's disappointing but not at all surprising.

~~~
Cyberdog
You find it hard to believe that a major world power is conducting both
espionage and soft power campaigns inside the US?

~~~
mathperson
and he finds this hard to believe after a power (russia) interfered massively
in an american election? an in europe...

------
eecc
Xenophobic paranoia, a gift that keeps on giving.

------
tetrahedr0n
Hard to get through some of these statements:

> They have a long-term strategic objective to become a world power. >
> Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats

O RLY? Funny, last I checked, China was a world power. Shit, China rivals the
US as a world power.

> Most Americans have not heard of all of these companies. > Sen. Mark Warner,
> a Virginia Democrat

Surprise surprise! Well, most American's haven't heard of Acxiom either. It's
always surprising how much other people don't know, isn't it?

And, FWIW, I bet more people have heard about ZTE than half the organizations
that contribute to Mark Warner's campaigns. New companies entering our markets
from China have to play by the same rules our own companies do, how is this
any different. If it is different, why? How does this matter in the discussion
of Chinese intelligence gathering. More importantly, who cares?

The fear-mongerers care, that's who.

