Beijing condemns patriotic overseas Chinese in spy war with the West

The official Chinese media give wide coverage to the case of Shing-Wan Leung, a 78-year-old man on trial on charges of being in the pay of the United States. In the UK, two people were identified as spying for Beijing, one of them from inside the London Parliament. For Beijing, national security is that of the party and Xi Jinping.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - A leader of a Chinese pro-government overseas community was sentenced to life imprisonment last May, in the context of an espionage affair that only recently emerged in all its scope and was widely reported by Beijing .

According to the Chinese authorities, John Shing-Wan Leung (梁成运), 78, became an informant for a US intelligence agency and organized sex traps aimed at espionage for over 30 years. Meanwhile, British media reported that two more people are accused of being spies for the Chinese authorities.

The Chinese Ministry of State Security, one of the main dragon intelligence agencies, published an article on the Chinese social network WeChat regarding a case of espionage. The post states that John Shing-Wan Leung was recruited by a US intelligence agency in 1989 and was paid one thousand dollars a month, plus related bonuses. The United States rewarded him for his work, in which he allegedly used sex to force Chinese officials caught in his trap to betray their country.

According to the ministry, Leung repeatedly spied on Chinese departments and organizations present in US territory and monitored the activity of Chinese citizens in the US. He would take his "victims" to restaurants and hotels where traps were set to gather information. Leung is also accused of defrauding people who fell into his network, then framed them by fabricating false "evidence" of espionage activities.

To improve Leung's image and influence, explains the news article which relaunches ministerial sources, the US secret services falsified his CV, including education in the United Kingdom, work experience at the UN and participation in the war in Vietnam.

The 78-year-old had become the leader of several Chinese community organizations abroad thanks to funds provided by the United States, which then ordered him to return to China to make donations and create an image of a "patriotic philanthropist". In particular, during the bloodiest phase of the Covid-19 pandemic he traveled to mainland China via Hong Kong with various documents for espionage purposes.

Leung has made himself known as a pro-Beijing leader within the Chinese community in the United States and some photos of him being received by past Chinese leaders are circulating online, including an image with former President Hu Jintao and the former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

According to what Chinese official media reported in the past, Leung, a dual citizen of Hong Kong and the US, was in line with Beijing's ideology and openly supported Hong Kong's national security law, while opposing the independence of Taiwan and maintaining a close link with the Chinese consulate in Houston.

In China, trials of espionage and national security cases are not open to the public. The United States has not yet protested the lack of transparency and treatment of Leung. Even the man's family and friends are silent on the case, while analysts and experts believe that he may be a double agent, sacrificed by the Chinese authorities in the spy war with the United States.

Also in May, Liang Litang (梁利堂), a pro-Beijing leader of Boston's Chinese community, was arrested by the FBI on charges of monitoring activists. A month before the arrest, in April, two people from Fujian province were arrested for running a secret Chinese police station in New York. Unlike the cases in China, Washington has revealed more details and evidence about Chinese spies.

It is worth remembering here that if on the one hand the Chinese authorities rarely resort to life imprisonment of a foreign citizen, on the other hand in recent months Beijing has strengthened the repression of espionage and approved a law on counter-espionage which has broadened the definition of activities and the possibilities of state intervention, causing unrest and tension among foreign companies in the country.

At the same time, Chinese spies have made governments in the West more nervous. The British newspaper The Sunday Times has announced that a parliamentary researcher, Chris Cash, in contact with a number of senior conservative figures, has been arrested for alleged espionage activities in favor of Beijing.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed concern about Chinese spies and denounced their interference in Parliament during the G20 summit last weekend, when he met his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang, while China denies London's accusations.

In recent months, Beijing has strengthened its propaganda against espionage and the Ministry of State Security has announced that "the mobilization of the entire society" is needed to counter it. The government encouraged all citizens to report spies in their vicinity, even going so far as to ask children to report their parents. The directives of the Chinese authorities are clear: national security is the security of the Communist Party and Xi Jinping.