Here We Go Again: More Chinese Espionage Targets America

The Chinese Communist Party covered up the origins of a global pandemic that killed millions, evidently with an assist from elements of the US government, as recently reported in the Wall Street Journal. China's regime has also engaged in a barrage of espionage against the United States, spanning many years. There's a reason why Congress voted on a bipartisan basis to ban TikTok in the US if it didn't sever its ties with its CCP-linked and China-based parent company. We'll revisit that point below, but first, a few examples of what the CCP has been up to lately.

One or two might be a coincidence. But nine? Come on:

A ninth U.S. telecoms firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said Friday. Biden administration officials said this month that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon...Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, told reporters Friday that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to hunt for Chinese culprits in their networks. The update from Neuberger is the latest development in a massive hacking operation that has alarmed national security officials, exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the private sector and laid bare China’s hacking sophistication. The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to obtain customer call records and gain access to the private communications of “a limited number of individuals.”

And who might those "limited number of individuals" include? The Post story reports, "though the FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among those whose whose communications were accessed." This is clearly intentional, widespread, targeted and sinister. Additional details:

Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense how many Americans overall were affected by Salt Typhoon, in part because the Chinese were careful about their techniques, but a “large number” were in the Washington-Virginia area. Officials believe the goal of the hackers was to identify who owned the phones and, if they were “government targets of interest,” spy on their texts and phone calls, she said. The FBI said most of the people targeted by the hackers are “primarily involved in government or political activity.”

This is the behavior of an enemy, make no mistake. And so is this:

“A Chinese student's drone got stuck in a tree near Newport News Shipbuilding in January. On it, FBI agents found photos of BAE Systems Ship Repair and General Dynamics' National Steel & Shipbuilding Co., as well as of the Newport News shipyard.”https://t.co/o04lFPcPPR
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) December 28, 2024

A Chinese "student." Sure. This is also part of a recurring pattern. What are the chances that none of the tens of thousands of Chinese nationals -- that we know of -- who have entered the country illegally during the Biden administration were sent here on various spy missions? Zero is the answer. The chances are zero. I'm also convinced a big part of the reason Donald Trump is talking about US sovereignty at the Panama Canal is to pressure the Panamanian government on this front, which is hugely important and strategic:

Same deal with Greenland and the Arctic, in my view. These are matters of concern under the Monroe Doctrine. All of which is to say that there's a very good reason why a huge bipartisan majority of Congress decided to throw down an ultimatum to TikTok, with a deadline fast approaching. The app is a Chinese espionage tool that could be weaponized any number of ways. Trump's initial instinct was correct on this, as was the decision to ban the app on US government phones. I hope the Supreme Court allows the duly-enacted TikTok effective ban proceed as passed, despite Trump's new (and apparently shortsightedly politically-motivated) objections.