US govt suspicions could threaten China
Targeting Chinese risks social stability, security
If the FBI’s excessive suspicions become the mainstream of the US, China’s exchanges and cooperation with the US would be affected, Chinese experts warned after the head of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called China “the top priority” of the agency’s counterintelligence mission.
Based on their suspicions and illusions on China, US intelligence agencies love to create trouble for innocent Chinese people in the US, such as Chinese students and scholars, and if the US keeps expanding its “China threat” theory within its society, China-US relations would be in danger, Chinese experts said on Friday.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told CBS on Wednesday that China is the target of economic espionage investigations in nearly all 56 of the FBI field offices.
“We’ve had cases involving everything from turbine technology in places like upstate New York to corn seed development in Iowa,” and “they’re trying to steal our trade secrets, our ideas, our innovation,” Wray told CBS.
“FBI is an intelligence agency with a suspicious nature, so Wray, as the head of this agency, is living in a world that enemies are everywhere. So when he looks at China-US ties and provides his views to the US public, he will surely exaggerate China’s threat to the US,” said Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University’s Institute of International Relations.
Wray’s views are consistent with the rising hostility toward China in the US government, but if this kind of thinking becomes the mainstream in US society, it would not only make it more difficult to repair China-US relations, but also increase “meaningless and unnecessary suspicion and terror” within US society, Li noted.
If political, economic, cultural and academic exchanges with China have been put under suspicion of espionage, there is nothing that can be done to develop the bilateral relationship, because in their eyes, no Chinese can be trusted, Li warned.
There is a strange view of China among US anti-espionage agencies, which is China is using its people to spy on the US, so agencies like the FBI would love to make trouble for innocent Chinese students, scholars and businesspeople in the US, which is wrong and groundless, Da Wei, director of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations’ Institute of American Studies in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday.
The US is not innocent
When accusing China of “espionage activities” with no hard evidence, US intelligence agencies are not innocent at all, said an international intelligence expert.
When US intelligence agencies target innocent Chinese companies and individuals in the US, they are conducting espionage missions to threaten China’s social stability and national security, and some of these “dirty activities” are even reported by US media, a retired Chinese national security authority officer who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Friday.
An article published by Foreign Policy on August 15 said that the CIA “botched the communication system it used to interact with its sources in China, according to five current and former intelligence officials.”
“Chinese authorities systematically dismantled” the CIA’s network of agents across the country, “executing dozens of suspected US spies,” and the article called this “one of the CIA’s worst failures in decades.”
The Foreign Policy report has neither been confirmed nor denied by any Chinese authority.
No more duty-free imported goodies
Korean cosmetics, Australian UGG boots, Thai latex mattress, European and US luxury goods, milk powder and lipstick, is it time to say goodbye to such goodies? Reports say that China’s new e-commerce law will come into effect on January 1, 2019 to regulate the business of daigou or independent overseas shopping agent, which literally means buying on behalf of someone else in Chinese. Quite a few consumers can’t help but feel disappointed. China’s daigou business has been booming for some time. Being a grey market in the country, it is not legal, but widespread. For people who cannot often go abroad but still want to purchase imported products at reasonable prices, daigou is perhaps an ideal choice because many a time import duties can be avoided. However, the new regulation does not mean that overseas goods can’t be purchased at all. It means fake products, which have been rife on daigou market, will come under strict control. Of course, customers need to get used to the fact that buying duty-free products from daigou will be a thing of the past. But the quality of all they purchase can be better guaranteed.