The Justice Department accused Chinese intelligence of attempting to undermine the congressional candidacy of a former Tiananmen Square protest leader-turned-retired U.S. Army chaplain in a criminal harassment and intimidation scheme.
The charges were leveled against Qiming Lin, a former Chinese police officer who later joined China’s Ministry of State Security, which is China’s internal intelligence and secret police agency. An FBI special agent assessed that Lin continued to act on behalf of the Chinese ministry despite his ostensible retirement.
Lin allegedly hired a private investigator last year in an effort to stop the candidacy of Xiong Yan, who is listed as “The Victim” in the court filings but is easily identifiable, with potential plans to stop Yan including digging up dirt, pushing falsehoods, and potentially even using violence.
Yan attended Beijing University Law School and was a student leader in the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, after which he was detained for nearly two years. He came to the United States as a political refugee in 1992 and soon joined the military, where his biography says he served for 26 years, including two tours in Iraq as a military chaplain. He has testified before Congress about the Chinese government’s brutality, traveled to Hong Kong for pro-democracy protests in 2015, and is seeking the Democratic nomination for a House of Representatives seat in New York’s 1st Congressional District in June.
“Transnational repression harms people in the United States and around the world and threatens the rule of law itself,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, on Wednesday.
Olsen announced he was ending the Trump-era China Initiative in February. The Justice Department announced a new task force in March aimed at Russian oligarchs.
U.S. INTEL VIEWS CHINA AS “UNPARALLELED” LONG TERM PRIORITY
The FBI says Lin hired a private investigator, and the investigator turned around and informed the bureau in September.
In a recorded conversation in November, Lin told the investigator that “if you don’t find anything after following him for a few weeks, can we manufacture something.” He stressed, “We don’t want him to be elected.”
The bureau says Lin wanted to see if there was a scandal that could be released, such as an extramarital affair or theft, and if there wasn’t, then he asked, “Can they create some?”
Among the “flaws” Lin instructed the investigator to look into were “unreported, unpaid taxes” or “[e]xtramarital affairs; affairs; uh, sexual harassment; or child porn; eh, [homosexual activity], things of that nature.” Lin said the investigator could use “cops, or lawyers, or the courts … or some sort of channel … to see, to see if he had any flaws, we dig it back up.” Lin also suggested that “you go find a girl for him, see if he would take the bait.”
The Chinese agent said: “There are some who speak negatively about China. … The people who always speak up, you need to pay attention to them. If possible — possible to get some information, then this side will hold you in very high regards in the future.”
Lin told the investigator in December that “you go find a girl … or see how he … goes for prostitution, take some photos, something of that nature.” He also suggested that the investigator “see if you can get some internal information.” On Christmas Eve, Lin said: “I hope that it’s not simply to slap some dirt on his face or whatnot, must go deep. … Go deep and dig up something. … If you can find it, or to create one, then it’s OK.” Lin later added: “But in the end, violence would be fine too. Huh? Beat him [chuckles], beat him until he cannot run for election. Heh, that’s the last resort. You think about it. Car accident, [he] will be completely wrecked [chuckles], right?”
The Chinese agent told the investigator on Tuesday, “They have not given the final approval yet. … Because the Communist Party, as you know, so many things. … It’s not just one person who can call the shots.” Lin promised “lots of money” if the investigator was “capable of getting things done.”
The Chinese government has long sought to suppress discussion of the Tiananmen Square protests, which took place in Beijing and across China in 1989, with reformers and students calling upon the ruling Communist Party to address corruption and inflation while demanding democracy and freedoms of speech and press, with 1 million or more people assembling in the square at the zenith. The Chinese government declared martial law, and troops killed thousands during a crackdown, according to reporters and Western diplomats.
The Justice Department also announced Wednesday that Shujun Wang was charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese government over his work for the Ministry of State Security. DOJ said Wang helped start a pro-democracy group but that, since 2015, he “has secretly operated at the direction and control of several MSS officers,” including by using “his position and status within Chinese diaspora community in New York City to collect information about prominent activists, dissidents, and human rights leaders to report that information to the PRC government.”
And prosecutors announced Fan “Frank” Liu and Matthew Ziburis were charged with conspiring to act as agents of China, and that Liu, Ziburis, and Quiang “Jason” Sun have been charged with interstate harassment. DOJ said that Liu and Sun “are charged with conspiring to bribe a federal official in connection with their scheme to obtain the tax returns of a pro-democracy activist residing in the United States.”
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Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said last week that China is the “absolutely unparalleled” long-term priority for the U.S. intelligence community. FBI Director Christopher Wray said last month the growing economic and national security threat posed by the CCP is graver than ever.
Then-DNI John Ratcliffe wrote in 2020 that China “engaged in a massive influence campaign that included targeting several dozen members of Congress.”
Fang Fang, also known as Christine Fang, a Chinese national believed to be working with China’s Ministry of State Security, conducted an extensive political influence operation between 2011 and 2015 on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party in the Bay Area and elsewhere, including a relationship with then-councilman and now-Rep. Eric Swalwell.
