'Chinese espionage operations in US at their highest level'

"At the beginning of November this year, the United States extradited a high-level Chinese spy to the US from Europe. The Chinese official in question is Yanjun Xu, a Deputy Director in China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), mainly responsible for external intelligence. It is the first time that an official at this level has been moved to the US for trial," The HK post reported.

The report stressed that how serious an issue Chinese espionage activity in the USbecomes clear from the fact that the FBI opening a new counterintelligence case into China every 12 hours.

On November 5, the US Federal Court verdict stated that Xu is a Chinese national and Deputy Division Director of the Sixth Bureau of the Jiangsu Province, Ministry of State Security.

Laying down the conviction, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division said, "This conviction of a card-carrying intelligence officer for economic espionage underscores that trade secret theft is integral to the PRC government's plans to modernize its industries".

The Xu case is pathbreaking because he could provide leads to other Chinese espionage activity directed against the US, said the report.

Citing the US think tank CSIS survey of Chinese espionage in the US since 2000, The HK Post reported that this survey lists 160 publicly reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the US since 2000.

Of the total, 42 per cent cases were carried out by the Chinese military or government employees. Of the 160 incidents, it was found that 24 per cent occurred between 2000-2009, while 76 per cent occurred between 2010-2021.

Christopher Wray, FBI Director had testified earlier this year that the US government had experienced a 1,300 per cent increase in economic espionage investigations over the last few years.

"I don't think there is any country that presents a more severe threat to our innovation, our economic security, and our democratic ideas," The HK Post quoted Wray as saying to the Senate Intelligence Committee talking about the threat from China in this regard. (ANI)