Singapore reputation fears after citizen admits being Chinese spy in US South China Morning Post
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMidGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNjbXAuY29tL3dlZWstYXNpYS9wb2xpdGljcy9hcnRpY2xlLzMwOTQ3MDEvc2luZ2Fwb3JlLXJlcHV0YXRpb24tY29uY2VybnMtYWZ0ZXItanVuLXdlaS15ZW8tYWRtaXRzLWJlaW5n0gF0aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuc2NtcC5jb20vd2Vlay1hc2lhL3BvbGl0aWNzL2FydGljbGUvMzA5NDcwMS9zaW5nYXBvcmUtcmVwdXRhdGlvbi1jb25jZXJucy1hZnRlci1qdW4td2VpLXllby1hZG1pdHMtYmVpbmc?oc=5
HOUSTON: Chinese staff departed China's Houston consulate to a jeering crowd on Friday (Jul 25) after the US government ordered the building closed, calling it a hub for spying on American companies and researchers.
About 100 protesters shouted "take back China", denounced the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and waved flags as consulate workers loaded belongings into rental trunks.
The five-storey building this week became the latest flashpoint between Beijing and Washington over trade, the coronavirus pandemic and military manoeuvres in Southeast Asia.
Shortly after the 4pm Central Time (5am, Singapore time) deadline to close the consulate, a group of people were seen by a Reuters journalist using power tools and a crowbar to force open the rear door. They declined to identify themselves to reporters.
After the men went inside, two uniformed members of the US State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security arrived to guard the door. They also did not respond to reporters.
The Chinese embassy in Washington and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to a Reuters witness, consulate staff had exited the building shortly after 4pm and left in vehicles.
Among the protesters, Zhony Yi Ma, 34, travelled to Houston with a group from New York to heckle consulate staff. Police kept the crowd away from the building.
"We want to end the CCP, take back China and build a nation like America," he said.
Activists against the Chinese Communist Party protest outside of China's consulate in Houston, Texas, US, Jul 24, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Adrees Latif)
Other protesters included a group of supporters of the Falun Gong spiritual group, which is banned in China. Tao Peng, 48, stood silently holding banners calling for an end to communism.
A medical research scientist from Houston, she said the CCP infiltrates groups and cannot be trusted.
"I grew up in mainland China and have seen how the CCP lies," she said as a Falun Gong hired truck circled the area with "Freedom from Communism, and God Bless America" emblazoned on its sides.
Senior US officials said on Friday that the consulate was one of the worst offenders in terms of Chinese espionage in the United States and linked its staff to China's pursuit of a vaccine for the coronavirus.
Nhat Nguyen, 58, praised US President Donald Trump and accused Chinese communists of spying around the world. He wore a Trump 2020 campaign hat and waved the former flag of the South Vietnamese government that was backed by the United States against the communist North in the Vietnam War.
"The vaccine is the latest," he said. "They lie, they take," he said.
Consulate staff had duties in eight southern US states. The building closed for official business earlier in the week.
Houston is a major medical hub known for top-notch research on cancer, infectious diseases and since the pandemic hit this year, vaccines for the coronavirus, which first emerged in China late last year.
The city is also home to dozens of oil and gas producers that develop technologies used around the world.
SINGAPORE: A National University of Singapore (NUS) PhD student who went to Beijing to give a presentation on politics was recruited by Chinese intelligence operatives and went on to work for them, collecting sensitive information about the US military and government.
Singaporean Yeo Jun Wei Dickson pleaded guilty on Friday (Jul 24) to using a fake consultancy business in the United States as a front to collect sensitive US information for Chinese intelligence. He entered his plea in federal court in Washington to one charge of operating illegally as a foreign agent.
In his plea, Yeo admitted to working between 2015 and 2019 for Chinese intelligence, spotting and assessing Americans with access to “valuable non-public information”.
This included information from a civilian working with the US Air Force on the F-35B aircraft programme, another from a US officer working in the Pentagon about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and a report about a person in the State Department about a US Cabinet member.
He recruited these people on social media under orders from the Chinese intelligence service, meeting operatives on more than 20 occasions.
RECRUITED WHILE DOING DOCTORATE IN NUS
Yeo’s work with Chinese intelligence operatives began as early as 2015, when he travelled to Beijing to give a presentation on the political situation in Southeast Asia, court documents show.
At the time, he was studying to receive his Doctorate of Philosophy in Public Policy from NUS.
After his presentation, he was recruited by individuals who claimed to be China-based think tanks. They offered Yeo money in exchange for political reports.
“Yeo came to understand that at least four of these individuals were intelligence operatives for the PRC (People’s Republic of China) government. One of the intelligence operatives later asked Yeo to sign a contract with the PRC People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Yeo refused to sign the contract but continued to work for this and other (Chinese intelligence service) operatives,” a signed statement of facts said.
The operatives tasked him with providing them information about international political, economic and diplomatic relations. They said they wanted “non-public information” – information that they referred to as “scuttlebutt”.
Scuttlebutt is a slang for rumours or gossip.
Tensions are rising between the US and China as they battle for global supremacy. (Photo: AFP/Jason Lee)
“At first, the taskings were focused on Southeast Asia. Over time, the taskings became focused on the United States,” court documents read.
“Although these (Chinese intelligence service) operatives used pseudonyms in their interactions with Yeo, they were open about their affiliation with the PRC government. One of the operatives told Yeo that he and his boss worked for the PRC’s main intelligence unit.”
During one of Yeo’s trips to China, he met this operative and two others in a hotel room. During the meeting, the operative instructed Yeo with obtaining non-public information about the US Department of Commerce, artificial intelligence, and the trade war between China and the US.
He met operatives in various locations across China, and met with one Chinese intelligence contact about “19 to 20 times”. He met another operative about 25 times.
Whenever Yeo travelled to China for the meetings, he would be taken out of the customs line and brought to a separate office for admission into China.
He raised this issue with an operative, but they told Yeo they wanted to “conceal his identity” when he travelled into China.
USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO CONNECT WITH TARGETS
Yeo used social media to find and recruit US citizens who could provide him information. In 2018, a Chinese intelligence operative instructed him to create a fake consulting company and post job listings for the company on an online job-search website.
He used the same name as a prominent US consulting firm that conducts public and government relations. More than 400 resumes were sent in, with 90 per cent of them from US military and government personnel with security clearances.
Yeo would send the resumes to Chinese intelligence service operatives if he believed they would find the person’s resume interesting.
A “professional networking website” that was focused on career and employment was used by Yeo to find individuals with resumes and job descriptions that suggested they were likely to have access to valuable “non-public” information.
After he contacted potential targets online, the website began suggesting additional potential contacts.
“According to Yeo, the website’s algorithm was relentless,” court documents said.
“Yeo checked the professional networking website almost every day to review the new batch of potential contacts suggested to him by the site’s algorithm.
“Later, Yeo told US law enforcement that it felt almost like an addiction.”
File photo of a man making a call.
FINDING TROUBLED TARGETS
After he identified his potential targets, he worked to recruit them to provide information and write reports.
He received guidance from Chinese intelligence contacts on how to recruit potential targets, including asking whether the targets were dissatisfied with work, were having financial troubles, had children to support, and whether they had a good rapport with Yeo.
The court was told of three people he managed to recruit to provide him with information.
In and around 2015, he spotted a civilian working with the US Air Force on the F-35B military aircraft programme. The person has high-level security clearance, and confided in Yeo that he was having financial trouble.
Yeo recruited him to write a report, and the civilian also provided information about the geopolitical implications of the Japanese purchasing F-35 aircraft from the US. Yeo drafted a report and sent it to his contacts in Chinese intelligence.
Between 2018 and 2019, Yeo spotted another person on the professional networking website. This person was employed at the US Department of State at the time, and told Yeo he was feeling dissatisfied at work and was having financial trouble.
He said he was worried about his upcoming retirement.
At Yeo’s direction, the man wrote a report about a then-serving member of the US Cabinet.
The man said he feared that if State Department officials discovered he had provided information to Yeo, it would jeopardise his retirement pension. Yeo paid him S$1,000 or S$2,000 for the report.
Another person was recruited via a social networking app, an US Army officer who was assigned to the Pentagon.
Yeo met the officer on multiple occasions, building up a “good rapport” with him. The officer confided in Yeo that he was traumatised by his military tours in Afghanistan.
File photo of a man using a laptop. (Photo: AFP/Frederic J Brown)
Yeo asked the officer to write reports for clients in Korea and other Asian countries, but did not say it would be given to a foreign government.
The officer wrote a report on how the withdrawal of US military forces from Afghanistan would impact China, and was paid S$2,000 or more for the report. The money was transferred to the officer’s wife’s bank account.
Yeo was told to recruit the US officer to provide more classified information, and was offered more money if the officer could become a “permanent conduit of information”.
After Yeo returned to the US in November 2019, he planned to ask the officer for the classified information and wanted to reveal who he was working for.
However, when he landed at the airport, he was stopped by law enforcement and arrested before he could ask for more information from the officer, court documents said.
COMMUNICATING FROM THE US
The statement of facts shows Yeo lived in Washington from about January 2019 to July 2019. Besides recruiting people online, he attended multiple events and speaking engagements at DC-area think tanks, making contact with several individuals from lobbying firms to defence contracting firms.
Yeo was told not to communicate with Chinese intelligence operatives when he travelled to the US over concerns their communications would be intercepted.
He was instructed to email operatives from a local coffee shop, if he needed to do so. Another told him not to take his phone and notebooks while travelling to the US.
WeChat logo. (File photo: AFP/Martin BUREAU)
Yeo was also given a bank card to pay his American contacts for the information they provided. When Yeo was outside the US, he communicated with a Chinese intelligence operative through WeChat.
He was asked to use multiple phones and to change his WeChat account every time he contacted the Chinese intelligence service operatives.
“Yeo failed to notify the US Attorney General that he would be acting in the United States as an agent of a foreign government or foreign government official,” the court documents said.
Yeo faces a maximum of 10 years imprisonment and will be sentenced on Oct 9.
A policeman (C) stands guard at the entrance to the US consulate in Chengdu, southwestern China's Sichuan province, on July 24, 2020
US-China relations deteriorated in a Cold War-style standoff Friday as Beijing ordered a US consulate to shut in retaliation for the closure of its Houston mission -- accused of being a hub for espionage and intellectual property theft.
Chinese officials were seen loading large sacks of objects and documents onto U-Haul trucks and tossing more into dumpster bins at the country's large mission in the Texas city, given a Friday deadline to vacate the building.
After the last of Beijing diplomats departed, law enforcement cordoned off the area and US officials were seen entering the consulate after using tools to force open a door.
In the Chinese city of Chengdu, in southwestern Sichuan province, some two dozen police were stationed in front of the US consulate as onlookers took photos before being prodded to move along, with the deadline for the Americans to vacate unclear.
Washington officials said the level of unacceptable efforts to steal US corporate secrets and proprietary medical and scientific research from the Houston mission had grown too large to ignore.
"Our action to direct the closure of PRC Consulate General in Houston was taken to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information," White House National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said.
For years, he said, the Chinese Communist Party "has undertaken a whole-of-society effort to steal American technology and intellectual property for commercial gain, and many of these activities are directed from PRC diplomatic facilities."
Underscoring the point, on Friday the Justice Department announced that a Singaporean "political consultant" based in Washington had pleaded guilty to recruiting American targets for Chinese intelligence.
And it said that a science researcher at a California university who hid her ties to China's People's Liberation Army and then fled to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco had been arrested and would face visa fraud charges.
- 'Legitimate response' -
China blasted the Houston move and blamed Washington for the sharp deterioration in relations.
Closing the Chengdu consulate was a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States", the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"The current situation in China-US relations is not what China desires to see, and the US is responsible for all this," it said.
Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that some US staff in the Chengdu consulate, near Tibet, "were engaged in activities outside of their capacity, interfered in China's internal affairs, and endangered China's security and interests."
The Chengdu consulate, established in 1985, has been at the center of past controversy. It was included on a top-secret map leaked by intelligence analyst Edward Snowden showing US surveillance worldwide.
The Chengdu mission was also where senior Chinese official Wang Lijun fled in 2012 from his powerful boss Bo Xilai, who was then head of the nearby metropolis Chongqing, and has since been jailed for life for corruption.
- China accused of 'tyranny'-
The deepening spat followed a torrent of speeches by top American officials attacking Beijing, and a series of arrests of Chinese nationals in the United States on spying, intellectual property theft and visa fraud charges.
In a strident policy speech in California Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on "free nations" to triumph over the threat of what he said was a "new tyranny" from China.
"Today, China is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom everywhere else," Pompeo said.
"If the free world doesn't change Communist China, Communist China will change us," he said.
He accused Chinese President Xi Jinping of being a "true believer" in the "bankrupt" totalitarian Marxist-Leninist ideology.
"His ideology informs his decades-long desire for global hegemony built on Chinese Communism," Pompeo said.
- 'Reckless behavior' -
The two nations have increasingly tussled over a plethora of issues, including China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its efforts to quash a democracy movement in Hong Kong.
In a video call with his German counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China still hopes to have mutually respectful cooperation with the US but stands ready to firmly safeguard its national sovereignty and dignity.
"China will not follow the US's dance, but will also never tolerate the US's reckless behavior," Wang said.
Victor Shih, associate professor of political science at University of California-San Diego, said that closing Chengdu instead of a higher profile US mission indicated Beijing was trying to avoid derailing ties completely.
"This response potentially allows the two sides to take a breather in this escalation, and provides room for the Trump administration to assess whether further straining ties with the US' largest trading partner in an economic downturn is advisable," Shih told AFP.
But Washington officials told reporters in a conference call Friday that US policy had shifted and that they want China to end its broad efforts to steal US intellectual property and stop abusing US openness.
"There comes a time when you have to say, enough is enough," said a senior State Department official, who insisted on anonymity.
"This is part of a deliberate effort by the US government to put this relationship on solid footing, footing that is balanced, that respects the interests of both sides."
US-China relations deteriorated further in a Cold War-style standoff Friday as Beijing ordered the US consulate in Chengdu to shut in retaliation for the closure of its own Houston mission -- accused of being a hub for espionage.
Chinese officials were seen loading large sacks of objects and documents onto U-Haul trucks and tossing more into dumpster bins at the country's large mission in the Texas city, given a Friday deadline to vacate the building.
In the Chinese city of Chengdu, in southwestern Sichuan province, some two dozen police were stationed in front of the US consulate as onlookers took photos before being prodded to move along, with the deadline for the Americans to vacate unclear.
Washington officials said the level of unacceptable activity in the Houston mission had grown too large to ignore, as they announced new criminal cases targeting Beijing.
The Justice Department announced that a Singaporean "political consultant" had pleaded guilty to recruiting American targets for Chinese intelligence.
And it said that a science researcher at a California university who hid her ties to China's People's Liberation Army and then fled to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco had been arrested and would face visa fraud charges.
"Our action to direct the closure of PRC Consulate General in Houston was taken to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information," White House National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said.
For years, he said, the Chinese Communist Party "has undertaken a whole-of-society effort to steal American technology and intellectual property for commercial gain, and many of these activities are directed from PRC diplomatic facilities."
- 'Legitimate response' -
China though called the Houston move unreasonable and blamed Washington for the sharp deterioration in relations.
Closing the Chengdu consulate was a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States", the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"The current situation in China-US relations is not what China desires to see, and the US is responsible for all this," it said.
Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that some US staff in the Chengdu consulate, in China's southwest near Tibet, "were engaged in activities outside of their capacity, interfered in China's internal affairs, and endangered China's security and interests."
He called the recent US arrest of four PLA-tied academic researchers for visa fraud "naked political persecution."
- China accused of 'tyranny'-
The deepening spat followed a torrent of speeches by top American officials attacking Beijing, and a series of arrests of Chinese nationals in the United States on spying, intellectual property theft and visa fraud charges.
In a strident policy speech in California Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on "free nations" to triumph over the threat of what he said was a "new tyranny" from China.
"Today, China is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom everywhere else," Pompeo said.
"If the free world doesn't change Communist China, Communist China will change us," he said.
He accused Chinese President Xi Jinping of being a "true believer" in the "bankrupt" totalitarian Marxist-Leninist ideology.
"His ideology informs his decades-long desire for global hegemony built on Chinese Communism," Pompeo said.
- 'Reckless behavior' -
The two nations have increasingly tussled over a plethora of issues, including China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its efforts to quash a democracy movement in Hong Kong.
In a video call with his German counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China still hopes to have mutually respectful cooperation with the US but stands ready to firmly safeguard its national sovereignty and dignity.
"China will not follow the US's dance, but will also never tolerate the US's reckless behavior," Wang said.
Victor Shih, associate professor of political science at University of California-San Diego, said that closing Chengdu instead of a higher profile US mission indicated Beijing was trying to avoid derailing ties completely.
"This response potentially allows the two sides to take a breather in this escalation, and provides room for the Trump administration to assess whether further straining ties with the US' largest trading partner in an economic downturn is advisable," Shih told AFP.
But Washington officials told reporters in a conference call Friday that US policy had shifted and that they want China to end its broad efforts to steal US intellectual property and stop abusing US openness.
"There comes a time when you have to say, enough is enough," said a senior State Department official, who insisted on anonymity.
"This is part of a deliberate effort by the US government to put this relationship on solid footing, footing that is balanced, that respects the interests of both sides."
