(Washington) Prostitutes, big guns and double agent: the United States accused Beijing on Wednesday of wanting to “silence” its critics based abroad by using low blows, and of having sought to smear a naturalized American dissident for derail his candidacy for Congress.
Posted at 4:48 p.m.
The Justice Department revealed at a press conference three separate court filings that it says prove “the degree of aggressiveness” of the Chinese government in suppressing its opponents living in the United States.
The first concerns a smear campaign targeting a former protester from Tiananmen Square, a refugee in the United States in 1992, naturalized American and who, after a career in the American army, hopes to win a seat in the House of Representatives in November.
If his name is not delivered in the procedure, it seems to be Yan Xiong, vying in the 1D riding in New York State.
According to court documents, Qiming Lin, a retired police officer suspected of working for the Chinese Ministry of Security, hired a private detective in the United States to monitor the candidate and discredit him.
The detective had informed the federal police in September and their exchanges were then recorded.
In excerpts, Qiming Lin explains that he wants to defeat the candidate before the Democratic primaries in May. “Otherwise he will be elected parliamentarian and we don’t want him to be,” he explained to his interlocutor.
In the following conversations, he asks the detective to search his past for embarrassing elements, such as “an affair” or financial embezzlement. “If you can’t find anything […], we can invent things,” he adds. Several scenarios, including one involving recruiting a prostitute to film their possible antics, are then considered.
“As a last resort”, the agent evokes the possibility of physically removing the dissident, for example by orchestrating a car accident.
Each time, he says he wants to refer to others. “Because you know the Communist Party… I’m not the only one pulling the strings…”.
An arrest warrant has been issued against Qiming Lin, 59, who is believed to be in China.
vandalized statue
The United States, on the other hand, made arrests in two other comparable cases.
Arrested on Wednesday, a 73-year-old professor, Shujun Wang, born in China and naturalized American, is accused of having provided information to China on pro-democracy activists, at least one of whom was later arrested in Hong Kong.
Co-founder of a New York organization considered critical of the communist regime, he is suspected of having used “his status in the Chinese diaspora” to gather information, which he then secretly delivered to four Beijing agents.
Two other people, Fan “Frank” Liu, a 62-year-old communications company chief, and Matthew Ziburis, a 49-year-old bodyguard, were arrested in New York on Tuesday. They are accused of having spied on Chinese opponents based in the United States and of having carried out a campaign of defamation against them in exchange for compensation.
According to court documents, they tried to bribe a tax official to obtain statements from a dissident. They also plotted to destroy the statue of a Chinese-born artist based in Los Angeles who had depicted President Xi Jinping in coronavirus. His work was later vandalized.
The two men were acting under the orders of an employee of a Chinese-based technology company, Quinang Sun, 40. Charged, he was not arrested.
For the American authorities, these lawsuits “reflect the determination of the United States to counter the threat of China, but not only”. Iran, Russia, North Korea or Belarus also engage in this type of “transnational repression”, deplored Matthew G. Olsen, who heads national security files within the Ministry of Justice.
“We will not allow any foreign government to infringe on the freedom of speech” of Americans and those who have come to live in the United States, he added.