Posted on 05/16/2024 5:51:10 PM PDT by george76
Switzerland agreed to buy F-35 jet fighters to park on a remote runway. Then the U.S. zeroed in on the Wangs, who owned the rustic hotel next door.
UNTERBACH, — The Hotel Rössli, a century-old lodge in this Alpine valley village, enjoys a spectacular view .
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But it is the view from the back that caught the attention of American intelligence agencies. About 100 yards from the rear of the rustic, wood-paneled inn .. cuts the runway where the Swiss military had agreed to base several F-35s, the world’s most advanced jet fighter. The airstrip, only partly fenced, is so accessible to passersby that farmers sometimes lead cows across it, bells clanging from their necks.
Until recently, the hotel’s most pressing complaint came from elderly neighbors disappointed that its Chinese owners, the Wang family, had closed its restaurant after buying it in 2018. Though Wang Jin’s wife, Lin Jing, spoke only Mandarin, and communicated using hand gestures, he smoothed things over by introducing himself in decent German to residents who were flattered—“very Swiss,” one said.
On a crisp summer morning last year, Swiss federal police raided the Rössli, taking the Wangs and their 27-year-old son Dawei in for questioning. Somebody left a note on the door reading: “The hotel is closed.”
For months, U.S. and British national security officials had been claiming that its quaint 1903 facade offered Beijing’s intelligence services an ideal watchpost on the front edge of an escalating spy war between America and China. Xi Jinping’s intelligence agencies, U.S. officials warned, were going to enormous lengths to acquire information about the supersonic jet, built to penetrate enemy airspace undetected.
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The National Security Agency documents Edward Snowden leaked in 2015 showed Chinese hackers had stolen terabytes of data on the jet.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Switzerland had some chinks in it’s armor?
“diversity”. It’d be ‘racist’ to not let chinese spies into your country. And it’s ‘racist’ to not let chinese communists buy up property in our countries.
There was just a story from Philippines, young female mayor of a town near an American base, owns a huge compound linked to international crime, has both a Chinese and Philippine name. No birth certificate, unable to answer any questions about growing up in Philippines. Says she was too young to remember anything from her youth.
You are silly!
Puns aside, it seems the Swiss military had a distinct lack of “armor” aka proper security.
CC
Ouch! Came out from the fog
[Villagers noticed the family would travel back to Beijing for long periods, including over Christmas holidays, the most lucrative time of year. Asked where he picked up German, Wang Jin told his new neighbors that he had grown up the son of a diplomat serving in Germany and Switzerland.
Of the four diplomats named Wang who served in Switzerland during Wang Jin’s childhood, two were military attachés, according to local archives. Of the two who served in West Germany, one left abruptly after five months, citing medical leave. The second arrived in 1969 as a reporter for the Chinese state news agency before working his way up to ambassador.
Many Chinese diplomats in Bern in the 1950s and 1960s were spies, who made the city a hub for espionage operations of the new Communist Chinese government in Europe, said Ariane Knüsel, a Swiss scholar and author of the book “China’s European Headquarters: Switzerland and China during the Cold War.”]
These people are spies and not exactly a model of professionalism. If that’s the best they can offer for a key target like the F-35, you gotta wonder about the quality of their staffing. One Chinese operative was lured to Belgium and is serving 20 years in a SuperMax facility.
Whatever you might say about Russia’s diminished capabilities since the spectacular heights of the Cambridge 5, it’s not sent a handler straight to prison.
Right out of a Bond film.
The High Table needs someplace to keep its planes.
I just read a story today about how swiss army knives are removing the blade from the knives.
Bttt
Oh no you didn’t!
“The High Table needs someplace to keep its planes.”
They already have Geneva.
I’m certainly not surprised. We had a United States Senator who had a Communist Chinese spy for a driver/staffer. And Feinstein was Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time! Our borders look like a Boston Marathon of millions of God only knows entering at will.
When Bush was in, his Homeland Security boss Chertoff, had people who were in the country illegally working at his private residence.
What a joke. This stuff is right out of a Mad Magazine episode.
It’s hard to believe that the Chinese would have to go to such lengths to gain info on the F-35. Its development has spanned the Clinton, Obama and Biden presidencies; I’m sure they have all the specs. What are they trying to do, find out which flavors of chewing gum the pilots prefer?
OK, now that one was actually amusing
[Everybody Wang Jin tonight
Everybody Lin Jing tonight]
Okay, okay, okay.
I was just looking for an excuse to post the song...
(WARNING: If you’re prone to epileptic seizures, DO NOT watch this video - in all seriousness)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXu6QmxpJE
It won’t be long, we’ll see China flying a bird kinda like the F-35, except... better.
Special model for retards in the UK.
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