Commentary: China may have a spy problem of its own
WELLINGTON: The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) centennial anniversary celebrations may have made headlines last week.
But amid the celebratory notes of how the country has arrived and how much the party has been pivotal to that narrative, observers reading the tea leaves to discern what big challenges lie alee for the state may do well to look at certain, less well covered developments in the lead-up.
For while Chinese President and CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping's leading of height Chinese communist leaders to renew their pledges of loyalty to the party on Jun 18 looked right at home, the anniversary was pregnant because it included Vice-president Wang Qishan, who had been widely rumoured to have fled Cathay.
Had information technology been true, Wang would have been the highest-ranking official to defect in recent decades.
The final being Lin Biao - so heir apparent to Mao Zedong who was said to be fleeing People's republic of china for the Soviet Union, after a failed assassination effort on his mentor's life when his plane crashed in 1971.
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THE Strange CASE OF DONG JINGWEI
While those suspicions regarding Wang have been smashed, there are growing concerns over Dong Jingwei, vice-minister for state security, the latest official to have come under the spotlight for supposedly defecting.
On that same solar day as the sit-in of loyalty, Dong was reported to take separately chaired a coming together to hash out implementing new counter-espionage regulations that came into effect in April.
The meeting evidently emphasised the importance of not only capturing strange spies just as well their Chinese collaborators and financiers behind the scenes.
Even so, unlike most official events covered by the mainstream Chinese media, there was scant details of the meeting – with no video or photo of the proceedings or mention of its location.
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The coming together is even more than curious considering of reported rumours that Dong, a current role holder, had already surrendered himself to The states Defense Intelligence Agency under the pretext of visiting his daughter in the state in February.
There is talk amid US and Australian media outlets he is the source of the Wuhan lab leak theory, which explains in part the US' renewed confidence in the idea despite non presenting any new, overt evidence.
Some bourgeois sites even suggest Politburo fellow member Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan for Dong to exist repatriated to China during the Anchorage talks.
If true, Dong's revolt could prove devastating for China's interests and the personal security of President 11.
As the head of Hebei Provincial State Security Section from February 2006 to March 2017, Dong reportedly recruited bodyguards for the central leadership in full general and President Eleven in particular.
PAST DEFECTIONS
Many loftier-ranking Chinese officials have been caught in the shadowy world of intelligence agencies engaging in homo intelligence operations including espionage, defections and penetration of government organisations.
Such cases are usually kept deliberately depression profile and serenity, given the humiliation non to mention national security considerations Communist china may take in concealing how much information technology knows. And so it can be challenging to piece together the puzzle of how big the problem is.
Only what we know is in more recent years is these include former Chinese ambassador to South Korea Li Bin in 2006 who was thought to have passed land secrets to Seoul and the former head of China's nuclear ability programme Kang Rixin in 2010 suspected of spiling nuclear secrets to an undisclosed foreign nation.
Both were constitute guilty of corruption with details of their cases kept under wraps.
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Fifty-fifty within the Ministry of State Security, Cathay's counter-intelligence apparatus, in that location have been cases of officials passing information to foreign countries, to the point where Hu Jintao had to intervene personally in 2012.
China has also witnessed defections in the past though these seem few and far in betwixt.
Yu Qiangsheng, an elder blood brother of Yu Zhengsheng, onetime Politburo Standing Committee fellow member and Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, defected to the US in 1985.
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A director of Mainland china's State Security Ministry, Yu's defection compromised Prc's human intelligence assets. The spy chief had exposed the pinnacle Chinese spy, Larry Wu-tai Jin, a CIA analyst, who had worked for the Usa government for 37 years but was secretly a mole for Red china, likewise equally Bernard Boursicot, a French diplomat recruited past China through a honeypot trap.
DONG'S REAPPEARANCE IN CHINA
As if it couldn't get curiouser, Dong's case does. On Jun 23, Dong reportedly reappeared in Beijing, together with Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi who attended the 16th Meeting of Security Quango Secretaries of the Shanghai Cooperation Arrangement Fellow member States via video.
Attention to the meeting was first drawn by a spokesperson for the Chinse Diplomatic mission in Washington who had been asked well-nigh Dong's defection and categorically denied information technology.
Yet, compared to photos and videos of the terminal coming together held on September 2020, netizens have pointed out that the photograph from this 16th edition looked photoshopped and the video spliced together with appearances from past meetings.
WHERE IS DONG?
There is one other theory apart from defection that could fit the above: That Dong has been arrested by Chinese intelligence agencies – for reasons of corruption or some other, nationally embarrassing unlawful behaviour including espionage.
Observers have pointed to similar developments in China's arrest of its superlative envoy, Ma Jisheng amid allegations of spying for the Japanese. Ma had but vanished in China after such charges surfaced in 2014.
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Dong's case may remain a mystery. Over the last 2 weeks, a US official speaking to Newsweek said the idea they had Dong was "absolutely untrue".
But if he is indeed missing and not at his post as claimed, nosotros should expect a major reshuffle in Mainland china'southward internal security ranks.
The incident is significant against the backdrop of a growing number of CCP cadres being caught in President Eleven'southward anti-corruption drive.
Such efforts have long been framed as either a commendable way to rid the country of decadent leaders or an abhorrent motility in President Eleven's silencing of political enemies and consolidation of ability.
Both interpretations might still concur h2o. Only perhaps this latest incident with Dong suggests a 3rd fashion to view People's republic of china's corruption bulldoze when such cases are reported in the media: Equally cases of counter-intelligence the state is struggling with.
The CCP may have kept a lid on the trouble but could it spiral out of hand one day and pose a serious threat to President Eleven? We can only sentry and try to read the tea leaves.
Professor Bo Zhiyue is founder and president of the Bo Zhiyue Communist china Institute, a consulting business firm providing services to authorities leaders and CEOs of multinational corporations.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-china-may-have-spy-problem-its-own-279681
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