Among the alleged targets of agents working for China's secret police was the father of Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu. Photo / AP
Five people acting as agents of the Chinese secret police stalked and harassed United States-based Chinese critics of the Beijing government — including a candidate for Congress on Long Island, a California-based artist, and the father of an Olympic figure skater, US federal prosecutors say.
In three criminal complaints unsealed on Wednesday (Thursday NZT) by the Justice Department, prosecutors described a series of attempts, some lasting years, to spy on and intimidate dozens of Chinese American dissidents and others living all over the US.
Three of the accused agents lived in Long Island or Queens — their activities centred on New York City, but some extended to other states. The three were arrested this week and appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday evening, while two other defendants remain at large in China, prosecutors said.
The allegations show the extent to which US officials believe Chinese spy agencies will go to retrieve information about critics of the government. In one of the cases, prosecutors accused a prominent Queens-based democracy activist of working secretly as a Chinese spy for more than 15 years.
The charges are the latest in a series of Justice Department cases that centre on efforts by the Chinese government to infiltrate the United States and monitor and harass individuals or communities that are considered political opponents of China.
On Wednesday afternoon, at a news conference announcing the charges, Matthew G. Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security, blamed "an overall rise in authoritarianism around the world" for what he described as an uptick in cases related to the intrusions of foreign state actors inside the US.
"This activity is antithetical to fundamental American values," Olsen said. "We will not tolerate such repression here when it violates our laws. We will defend the rights of Americans and those who come to live and work and study in the United States."
US-China relations, which have grown increasingly adversarial in recent years, are particularly strained at the moment because of China's strong bond with Russia. Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, senior Biden administration officials pleaded with China to dissuade Russia from the invasion — but the US efforts were rebuffed, the Times reported last month.
The three cases unsealed on Wednesday detailed separate schemes, each involving people identified by US authorities as agents from China's Ministry of State Security, a civilian intelligence and secret police unit.
In the case involving the congressional candidate, prosecutors said Qiming Lin — identified in the court filings as a China-based member of the Chinese security apparatus — tried to gather damaging information on a naturalised US citizen who had been a student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
The candidate, who was not named in the complaint, matches the description of Yan Xiong, who last year announced his candidacy for a US House of Representatives seat from Long Island. A person familiar with the cases confirmed Yan's identity. Yan served in the US military and has taken part in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, according to the complaint.
Prosecutors said Lin engaged a private investigator to dig up — or, failing that, to manufacture — compromising information about Yan, such as an affair or unpaid taxes, before the June primary.
The private investigator, however, was an FBI source and, according to the complaint, kept authorities apprised of the efforts. In a voicemail message quoted in the complaint, Lin suggested that the investigator physically attack Yan, saying, "beat him until he cannot run for election".
In an interview, Yan said he had been unaware of an effort to discredit him, adding, "I appreciate the prosecutors who are trying to protect me."
Lin remains at large, authorities said. He faces two counts related to conspiracy to commit interstate harassment.
In another case, prosecutors accused Shujun Wang — a Queens-based scholar and naturalised US citizen — of working secretly for at least 15 years under the direction and control of Chinese state security officers. Prosecutors said Wang had worked as a mole within a pro-democracy organisation that he helped found to promote the work of former reformist members of the Chinese Communist Party.
The organisation, identified in the complaint as the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation, was entangled in another criminal case this week. On Monday, Wang's co-founder, Jim Li — a Tiananmen Square activist who emigrated to the United States after being held in a Chinese prison — was fatally stabbed in his law office in Queens.
His assailant has been identified by police and witnesses as a young Chinese woman, Xiaoning Zhang, who — according to a colleague of Li's — draped a Chinese flag on a chair in Li's office before attacking him.
Two people with knowledge of the cases said they did not appear to be connected; a spokesperson for the federal prosecutor's office in Brooklyn declined to comment.
Prosecutors said Wang, 73, used his connections in the Chinese diaspora community, including his work at the foundation, to gather information about dissidents — Uyghur and Tibetan activists, supporters of the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, advocates for Taiwanese independence and others — which he shared with his Chinese handlers.
At least one Hong Kong democracy activist about whom Wang reported to his handlers was subsequently arrested by Chinese authorities, according to the complaint. Wang told his handlers about his meetings and conversations with the dissident, who was identified in the complaint as a human rights lawyer and former member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council.
Wang was arrested on Wednesday and is charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and with making false statements to law enforcement in 2017 and 2019 interviews, among other counts.
Wang was released on a US$300,000 (NZ$435,699) bond on Wednesday. A lawyer for Wang did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The third case centres on two Long Island residents whom prosecutors say were operating as unregistered agents of a foreign government, under the direction of a Chinese businessman who served as an intermediary for the Chinese government.
Fan "Frank" Liu, president of what prosecutors described as a "purported media organisation", and Matthew Ziburis, a former Florida correctional officer working as a bodyguard, are accused of trying to discredit or gather intelligence on dissidents in New York, California and Indiana.
Both were arrested on Tuesday and made their first appearances in federal court in Brooklyn Wednesday afternoon. Liu was released on a US$1 million bond with electronic monitoring, with restricted travel.
The businessman, Qiang "Jason" Sun, was identified in the complaint as a China-based employee of an unnamed international technology company that is based in China. He remains at large, prosecutors said.
Liu's efforts, as outlined in the complaint, included paying a private investigator to bribe an Internal Revenue Service employee for the tax return of a Chinese dissident artist based in Southern California.
The investigator was cooperating with the FBI, and no bribe was paid, according to the complaint. In recorded conversations with the investigator, Liu said he was working for Sun — whom he called "Boss" — and his company.
Liu and Ziburis also targeted the dissident artist directly, according to the complaint, by having Ziburis pose as an art dealer to gain more information about his artwork and photograph his home. Ziburis also put a GPS device on the artist's car.
The artist is unnamed in the complaint, but it matches the description of Chen Weiming, a Chinese-born sculptor known for his political activism and artistic protests against the Chinese government.
In the spring of 2021, one of Chen's installations in California — which depicted Chinese President Xi Jinping as a coronavirus molecule — was destroyed by vandalism. The complaint quotes communications in which Sun encouraged Liu to have Ziburis destroy the sculpture, saying, "Destroy all sculptures and things that are not good to our leaders."
However, the complaint notes, Liu and Ziburis were in New York City at the time the sculpture was destroyed.
Prosecutors also said that in late 2021 Ziburis posed as a member of an international sports committee to gain access to a California-based dissident's home. That dissident, a person familiar with the case said, is Bay Area lawyer Arthur Liu, father of US figure skater Alysa Liu.
In a November 2021 report to Frank Liu quoted in the complaint, Ziburis described going to Arthur Liu's house in the Bay Area, and asked to check the family's passports to ensure he and an unnamed family member were set for international travel. He described Arthur Liu growing angry and telling him to leave.
Prosecutors note that the FBI said there was no evidence that Ziburis actually spoke with Arthur Liu, who was away from home on the date of the supposed encounter.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Rebecca Davis O'Brien
© 2022 THE NEW YORK TIMES
André Gleißner died alongside four women after car driven through Magdeburg market.