TOP US justice officials have accused the Chinese government of an unrelenting campaign by intelligence operatives to subvert the American justice system and steal commercial secrets.
Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray detailed three separate cases in which Beijing’s spies allegedly harassed dissidents inside the United States, tried to interfere in the prosecution of a Chinese telecoms giant understood to be Huawei, and pressured US academics to work for them.
Thirteen Chinese nationals who allegedly worked for Beijing’s spy agencies have been indicted in the cases and two of them have been arrested.
The cases showed that China “sought to interfere with the rights and freedoms of individuals in the United States and to undermine our judicial system that protects those rights,” said Garland.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by any foreign power to undermine the rule of law upon which our democracy is based,” the top US law enforcement officer said.
Garland, Wray, and other top justice officials spoke about the cases in a press conference in Washington one day after Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as China’s leader.
US officials have tied Xi to what they see is a growing effort by Chinese intelligence agencies over the past decade to steal US intellectual property and to crack down on Chinese political dissidents in the United States.
Asked whether the announcements on Monday were timed to Xi’s confirmation as the Chinese Communist Party’s all-powerful general secretary on Sunday, Wray avoided any specific link.
“We bring cases when they’re ready. And that’s probably the simplest answer and most straightforward answer to that, as far as what signal they send,” the FBI chief said.
“If the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, continues to violate our laws, they are going to keep encountering the FBI,” he said.
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