Chinese espionage, to most Americans, means spy balloons, cyberattacks, and stolen military secrets. But it operates in many different ways that all are designed to further what Peter Schweizer of the Government Accountability Institute calls China’s “disintegration warfare” against the United States. Most recently, that has even included the mayor of a California city.
“It’s the cumulative effect of all of this that presents the main challenge,” Schweizer told host John Bickley of the Morning Wire podcast this weekend, commenting on the guilty plea by Eileen Wang, who just resigned as mayor of Arcadia, California after she was shown to have been acting as a paid agent for the Chinese government. It’s all part of China’s strategy to weaken the US.
“China does a lot at the state and local level, where they can advance their interests aggressively,” Schweizer said.
Two of his most recent books, Red Handed and Blood Money, covered this topic extensively, showing how China’s strategy is to weaken the US through many different means. Paying agents of influence inside the US is nothing new. Schweizer noted that disgraced former Democrat congressman Eric Swalwell was a city commissioner in Northern California when his relationship with a proved Chinese spy named “Fang Fang” first began.
“Their inducements are the Chinese ethnic bond, but also money. Unlike the former Soviet Union, the Chinese have a lot of it to throw around, and they are quite effective in recruiting spies and causing problems inside the United States,” Schweizer told the show’s hosts.
Federal investigators have shut down secret Chinese police stations, and networks tied to fentanyl trafficking and intellectual property theft. Last June, two Chinese nationals were charged with smuggling a dangerous fungus into the US to damage crops.
These are not isolated incidents, but part of a broad strategy.
Co-host Georgia Howe asked Schweizer what are the motivations for people who get involved with Chinese espionage?
“Some would say they were motivated out of a naive desire for peace. But these individuals are dealing with people who are part of the Chinese government apparatus or part of the Chinese United Front (associated groups),” Schweizer said. “In either case, there are no excuses. Whatever their motivations, If you are taking money or doing the bidding of a foreign government like China, you are required to register with the US Department of Justice so they can assess what you’re doing,”
Schweizer said. “The mayor in this case failed to do that and is now suffering the legal consequences.”
Why would China be interested in low-level politicians like a small city mayor like Wang?
“Mayors can have a lot of influence on issues related to zoning,” Schweizer said. “China is trying to acquire real estate in this country, that they use for various purposes. Ultimately, though, the goal is political influence, and they will try to identify people on the local level who may get appointed to a state position or run for higher office in the future. They want to develop a relationship earlier,” he said.
“That was certainly the case with Eric Swalwell, who was a city commissioner in northern California when his relationship with Fang Fang began,” he added. “What they are looking for is ‘elite capture.’”
The Chinese are willing to tolerate a bit of criticism by those it is using. They call that “big help, with a little bad mouth,” Schweizer says. “They expect them to help advance China’s interests – access to American capital markets, our consumer markets, and just to advance their commercial and political interests in the US.”
Asked about the extraordinary security steps the US delegation took when visiting China for the summit this past week, Schweizer said, “China is a surveillance state.” Many of the deals under discussion are quite complex, and “to know what the US team is discussing, or what they are willing to give away would provide a huge advantage to China.”
Inside the US, Schweizer said, China steals from companies and laboratories. “You have 600,000 Chinese students who are studying at American universities right now,” Schweizer said. “They’re not studying comparative literature or gender studies. They are studying hard sciences, and working in laboratories.”
Even if a student does not want to spy for China, “the problem is that they can pressure your family back in China , make bad things happen to your family if you don’t cooperate,” Schweizer said. “Every student is a potential recruit.”
On the political side of their spying efforts, what the Chinese themselves call “elite capture,” they will seek commercial relationships with members of prominent political figures, helping to make them rich within China, so that they feel beholden to Beijing. GAI’s book Secret Empires exposed how this was done with Hunter Biden, son of then-Vice President Joe Biden.
The Chinese are looking for political influence, “but they are absolutely paranoid about China hawks who call for a hard line, because it would compromise a lot of their operations,” Schweizer said. “So, they devote a lot of resources to trying to recruit and exploit political assets that can advance China’s interests politically by muting criticism of their country.”
“We in the West tend to think of war and peace as separate categories,” Schweizer said. “China has a different view. They are practicing disintegration warfare, which doesn’t involve a shooting war, but engaging in nonlethal operations to weaken their enemy,” Schweizer said.
Fentanyl is the best example. China sees it as payback for the Opium Wars of the 19th century, as well as to cause havoc in the us socially,” he points out. “Fentanyl is fueled more by China than the Mexican drug cartels. China provides all the precursors and helps with the labs that create this deadly cocktail. The proceeds are laundered through Chinese state-owned banks.”
“A well-known Chinese book on unrestricted warfare from 1999 actually mentioned drugs as a method of warfare,” he said. “It’s a brilliant strategy and, to a large extent, you could argue that it’s working.”
Finally, the hosts ask why the Trump administration doesn’t appear to mention Chinese Spying as a summit issue. “There are so many issues – Iran, trade, intellectual property, beef exports, Chinese investment in the US, Chinese cars in the US market, etc., the challenge any president faces is — what are our priorities?”
Schweizer says, “I think the Trump administration’s calculation has so far been that we are going to expel spies and arrest people but not put our overall relationship at risk because we are trying to advance these other areas of interest to the United States.”
