Chinese citizens, often posing as tourists, have gained access to top-secret military installations more than 100 times in recent years during the latest escalation of the communist country’s war of espionage with the US, a shocking new report says.
In 2022, officials including FBI agents and Defense Department officials held summits to combat the growing problem, reports the Wall Street Journal. Speaking to the newspaper, authorities called the problem an “espionage threat.”
Outlandish efforts by communist nation agents in recent times include scuba diving near Cape Canaveral, wandering to a missile launch site in New Mexico, and claiming to reside at an Alaskan military base.
Officials investigating the espionage say those caught are usually held accountable under local trespass laws, given scant fines and told not to return. Violations are not covered by federal law that prohibits more extensive surveillance, Democratic Representative Jason Crow told WSJ.
This latest bomb comes just months after China’s spy balloon, which U.S. officials say had rudimentary flight checks, passed through a number of U.S. nuclear missile facilities in late January and early February, before being shot down by an F-22 Raptor fighter off the coast of South Carolina.
Fort Wainright, the center of US military operations in the Arctic, was the subject of an apparent espionage attempt, the Wall Street Journal reports.
A group of Chinese nationals was recently stopped diving near the missile array at Cape Canaveral, pictured here
Another group of Chinese, posing as tourists, wandered on to a base in New Mexico adjacent to White Sands National Park.
When caught, the Chinese nationals give what appears to be a rehearsed script when they encounter guards. They claim to be lost tourists, unnamed officials told the newspaper.
The Wall Street Journal describes the Chinese nationals being “pressed” into national service.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in D.C. was optimistic when asked about the report, telling the paper that the claims were “purely ill-intentioned fabrications.”
We urge relevant U.S. officials to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop baseless accusations, and do more things conducive to increasing mutual trust between the two countries and friendship between the two countries. two peoples,” said Liu Pengyu.
In what the Journal describes as a “recent case,” a group of Chinese citizens claimed they were staying at a Holiday Inn in Fort Wainright, Alaska.
Security at the base immediately came under suspicion because tourism in the area is extremely unusual. The base is host to the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division.
Emily Harding, a former official on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told WSJ that the Chinese espionage operation is more of a numbers game.
‘The advantage of the Chinese is that they are prepared to collect people in large numbers. If a few of them get caught, it will be very difficult for the US government to prove anything other than breaking the law, and those who don’t get caught are likely to collect something useful,” Harding said.
The spy balloon, which US officials say had rudimentary flight controls, flew over a number of US nuclear missile facilities
President Joe Biden downplayed the Chinese spy balloon that floated across the US in February, claiming Beijing may have been unaware of the operation
Harding added that even if a Chinese national were arrested for espionage, it would be unlikely to cause much outrage in China, unlike if a US citizen were arrested in a hostile country.
In New Mexico, a group of Chinese civilians advanced to a missile site close to White Sands National Park, in other cases the spies used drones to aid their activities.
Another group was caught a few years ago swimming in the waters off Key West, Florida, taking photos next to a Navy airfield.
In 2019, three Chinese nationals were sentenced to prison for illegally taking photographs at a Florida naval base.
Lyuyou Liao, 27, was sentenced to 12 months in prison after pleading guilty to illegally entering NAS Key West and taking photos and video footage of property in the station’s Truman Annex.
Two others, Jielun Zhang, 25, and Yuhao Wang, 24, were sentenced to 12 months and nine months in prison, respectively, for entering the base in January 2019 and taking photos of the military and naval infrastructure.
In the same year, a Chinese woman was sentenced to eight months in prison after entering the Mar-a-Lago estate of then-President Donald Trump along with electronic devices and two passports.
Also in 2019, two Chinese citizens were deported from the US after attempting to drive to the Little Creek-Fort Story Joint Expeditionary Base in Virginia Beach, reported the Virginia pilot.
The two men, who were with their wives, said they misread the directions and accidentally ended up on the base.
In June, President Joe Biden was criticized for downplaying the Chinese balloon scandal.
The beleaguered president suggested Beijing may not have known the spy balloon was in operation.
China has some legitimate problems that have nothing to do with the United States. And I think one of the things that caused that balloon wasn’t so much that it got shot down, but I don’t think the leadership knew where it was, knew what was in it and knew what was going on,” Biden said in June .
“I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,” he added.