Posted on 06/30/2005 5:13:38 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Chinese defector warns Canadians of Beijing's spy operations
JIM BRONSKILL
Wed Jun 29, 7:18 PM ET
TORONTO (CP) - The high-profile Team Canada business missions to China during the last decade were undoubtedly prime targets for Beijing's spies, says a Chinese security official who fled his job to begin a new life.
Guangsheng Han says the luggage of important foreign visitors to China is often secretly searched, Chinese delegations that go abroad frequently include spies, and foreign embassies and consulates routinely engage in espionage.
"China places a lot of importance on the collection of intelligence," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Han spent 14 years with the Public Security Bureau office in Shenyang, a major centre in northeastern China, and another five with the city's Judicial Bureau.
He quietly defected to Canada in 2001 during a visit to Toronto, resigning from his job and claiming refugee status the next year.
The federal Immigration and Refugee Board has turned down Han's claim, saying he was complicit in crimes against humanity. Han is taking steps to appeal the decision in Federal Court.
He was not directly involved in activities related to foreign spying but amassed intimate knowledge of Chinese techniques during his career.
Han said Chinese hotels that are allowed to accept foreign guests must report visitors' names to the Chinese public security and national security directorates. Sometimes a security official will even be planted on the hotel staff.
Guests of interest, particularly diplomatic and government personnel, business people and scientists, frequently come under surveillance.
Han said listening devices are planted in rooms and bags are clandestinely searched by security officials.
"I wanted Canadian citizens . . . to be aware of this type of thing when they go to China."
The periodic Team Canada missions, Ottawa-sponsored initiatives that included dozens of businesses signing deals with Chinese companies, would have been a natural target, Han indicated.
"These delegations would be under surveillance."
Han, who now lives quietly in Toronto, recently approached the Epoch Times, a newspaper that publishes in several countries in Chinese, English and French. Given Han's desire to reach a wide audience, the Times referred him to The Canadian Press. He told his story to both news outlets through a Mandarin-speaking CP reporter.
Han said he was inspired to come forward by the stories of two Chinese defectors seeking asylum in Australia.
Hao Fengjun, also a former officer with the Public Security Bureau, claims Beijing maintains a vast network of more than 1,000 spies in Canada, with operatives in Toronto, Vancouver and several other major cities.
The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa has flatly denied that Beijing spies overseas, noting such allegations have been made before.
"All previous accusations, however, have turned out to be untrue," the embassy said in a news release this month when the issue of spying arose in the Commons.
Han claims otherwise.
"Many staff members of embassies and consulates stationed abroad are spies. This is quite commonly understood," he said.
"In addition, a sizable number of reporters sent abroad have an espionage role to play."
Some spies come to Canada posing as legitimate business people, Han said.
And others who allegedly arrive on business have secret motives. "They are in fact government officials or intelligence officials."
Han remembers seeing a security official from his home province of Liaoning among members of a visiting delegation at a Chinese restaurant in Toronto in December 2002.
"So I think it's important for the Canadian Embassy in China to thoroughly investigate the identities of people coming out on these delegations."
Wesley Wark, an intelligence historian at the University of Toronto, said the methods Han describes sound plausible.
"And I would assume that all of them do take place," Wark said.
"All of those are classic Soviet and indeed Chinese Cold War tactics. And in the Chinese case it seems pretty clear that the end of the Cold War really had no impact in terms of their determination to go on using those kinds of intelligence tactics for their own benefit."
Ping!
China is looking more and more like a bad-guy in the world.
Maybe China wants to politically colonize Canada as attempting against Australia. The liberal majority of Canada should be an easy operation for China's propaganda teams to create more anti-Americanism in Canada bribing the Canadian media to politically colonize the country. Should we see them buying Canada firms as a second stage to colonize Canada as an attempt with Unacol?
ping
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.