Posted on 07/01/2005 10:11:31 PM PDT by CHARLITE
China’s communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances, said a former Chinese diplomat.
Chen Yonglin, until recently a senior political officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, said in an interview that China also is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering activities in the United States that, in the past, netted large amounts of confidential U.S. government documents from agents.
“The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival,” Mr. Chen told The Washington Times in a telephone interview from Australia, where he is in hiding after breaking with Beijing in May.
All Chinese government officials are ordered to gather information about the United States, “no matter how trivial,” he said. “The United States occupies a unique place in China’s diplomacy,” Mr. Chen said. A pro-democracy activist who took part in the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Mr. Chen, 37, spent 10 years as a Foreign Ministry official. He said he defected and sought political asylum in Australia to highlight repression of the Chinese people by their government and the ruling Communist Party, as well as the repression of dissidents such as democracy activists and the Falun Gong spiritual group.
Most Chinese government activity in the United States involves information-gathering carried out by military-related intelligence officers or civilians linked to the Ministry of State Security, Mr. Chen said.
“I know that China once got a heavy load of confidential documents from the United States and sent it back to China through the Cosco ship,” Mr. Chen said, referring to the state-owned China Ocean Shipping Co. The information was “very useful” to China’s military and related to “aircraft technology,” he said.
The Chinese also send political police abroad to monitor overseas Chinese and others in North America who Beijing considers opponents of the regime, he said. China’s government has targeted Australia as part of its “money diplomacy” and is working hard to persuade Australia not to send troops to help the United States in any conflict over the Republic of China (Taiwan), Mr. Chen said.
China has sought to influence Australia’s government through high-level political visits and favorable trade and by offering contracts on energy-related products. The goal is to force Australia to become part of a China-dominated “grand neighboring region” in Asia and to “force a wedge between the U.S. and Australia,” he said.
The U.S. government has a close intelligence relationship with Australia and has been working to build stronger military ties, as the Pentagon shifts its global strategy toward Asia with the planned deployment of more arms in the western Pacific region to counter a Chinese military buildup.
Mr. Chen said he is “frustrated” that the Australian government in May turned down his request for political asylum, a move he thinks was linked to Australian government fears of upsetting Beijing.
Mr. Chen also said he fears that Chinese agents could kidnap him, as they have done with other exile dissidents. He said he prefers to stay in Australia with his wife and child, but also could seek asylum in the United States if Australia threatens to send him back to China, which he fears would endanger his life.
Two other Chinese government officials also defected recently in Australia and have revealed Chinese government spying activities. Mr. Chen also provided new insights into the closed world of China’s ruling power structure and political tensions between President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin.
Mr. Hu is not fully in control of the government and military, and Mr. Jiang continues to wield power behind the scenes through allies in the armed forces, he said. “Hu is still in the shadow of Jiang and will be until Jiang dies,” Mr. Chen said.
The Chinese leader, however, launched his own version of Chinese ideology at the end of last year that calls for education in advancing the Communist Party. Asked whether Mr. Hu will bring democratic reform to China, Mr. Chen said the Chinese leader is the beneficiary of the dictatorship and, therefore, is unlikely to make changes.
“For the past 16 years, a lot of people have been looking to see if the Communist Party can change from the top down to the low levels, but nothing changes,” Mr. Chen said.
On China’s military buildup, Mr. Chen said Beijing is following the strategy of former leader Deng Xiaoping, who urged China to “bide our time, build our capabilities” — military as well as economic and political. “What that means is that when the day is mature, the Chinese government will strike back,” he said.
Mr. Chen said the danger of a war over Taiwan is growing.
“That is possible as Chinese society is getting more unstable,” he said. “Once any serious civil disobedience occurs, the government may call for a war across the Taiwan Strait to gather [political] strength from people.”
"China's everywhere these days. They've got 10,000 troops in the Sudan, an alliance with Venezuala, etc."
I know they are global. But I doubt they have enough resources that they feel they must be involved with every situation. With the Russians covering it, I suspect the Chinese take a pass there.
Glad to see you've been properly re-educated, Comrade garandgal! Glory to the New World Order!
Ping for later
sbflr
...and they are building a military to match those sentiments.
I do NOT buy Chicom goods, which makes Wally-World shopping difficult. Unless the winds-of-change sweep through that commie rat-nest, we will fight them one day. We had better be prepared to wage all-out war by then!!!
BOYCOTT EVIL!
LLS
Thanks for reminding me that I am a little low on .306, .45, and 7.62mm. I will rectify that today.
Islamofascists have far more to fear from China than America.
How about corporate board rooms and the G.O.P.leadership including G.W.Bush.
Source information to back that claim up?
Have you seen the flood of goods from communist china that have been pouring into our nation's stores for the past fifteen years as corporate America runs like dogs to vomit for the goods made by slave labor.
Did you see American corporations,with full support of the G.O.P., clammering for the communist chinese to be admitted to the WTO therefore negating the need for MFN.
Did you see GWB welcome the dictator of China to the White House?
If this isn't enough I can offer more.
Please do not forget about klintoon's active role in organizing anti-war protests and his travels through USSR in the 60's. Scary and Toon both prodcuts of,"Club Red." NSNR
BTTT
i don't understand why american, japanese and european corporations have placed most of the eggs in the chinese basket.
it would be fairer to spread the stuff around the globe.
yes, some countries lack the centralized and totalitarian controls to enforce security. but it would seem that the incentives of a better life in some countries would generate the interest in governments to protect these assets.
yes, most 3rd world countries are under developed. but many thanks to the internet are educating more people than ever before in the hope of moving into a better life.
a chinese textile worker is no more skilled than an african or a latin american.
dispersing outsourcing would have limited china's explosive growth, and increased the western influence abroad.
Just wait for the free traitors to comment on this. They will tell you how this is not news and that China only wants to get along.
I am not so sure that China is not discretely helping the "insurgents". China was very much involved with the Saddam regime, helping with anti US radar systems and hardening communication lines in the no-fly zone. Not that it helped Saddam much heh heh.
But for now, their enemies enemy is their friend.
Yes, sooner or later we are going to have to confront the chinese. Right now our wonderful gov't would rather pretend we are just great chums and play paddy cakes. By then the damage will be done and ordinary americans will pay the price in blood and treasure. Its more important to protect the "right" to an abortion for ordinary americans and to propagate better and more "legal" ways for the powerful to steal their property. I think they're going to have to just get more foreigners to fight their wars. It would be too hard for us natives to tell the difference between friend and foe in a war with china.
"I am not so sure that China is not discretely helping the "insurgents"."
Well, I'm not sure either. If they can do anything the Russians can't, they would do it. And maybe, now that i think of it, that is a good idea for them. Because I suppose Putin still "sells" in Europe as a "man of peace." Better if someone is caught providing equipment, for it to be the Chinese. So far, however, all the advanced equipment of the terrotists (body armor, weapons, etc.) have been of the Russisn type, some relatively recent-issue, I believe.
bttt
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