How China turns members of its diaspora into spies
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. AMONG EXILED Chinese dissidents, Tang Yuanjun was well known. He had participated in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and landed in prison as a result.
He later defected to Taiwan, swimming to one of its outlying islands from a fishing boat. America granted him asylum and he settled in New York, becoming the leader of Chinese pro-democracy groups. But in August 2024 he was arrested by the FBI.
He admits to having used his position to collect information for the Chinese government and to report on his fellow activists. He did this so that the government would allow him to return to China to see his ailing parents. China’s hacking of American computer networks and its efforts to steal Western military and trade secrets have made headlines in recent years.
But it has also been pursuing a more subtle campaign, one that involves bribery, blackmail and secret deals, and which uses people such as Mr Tang and other members of the Chinese diaspora to carry out surveillance, information-gathering and influence operations around the world. Britain recently got a taste of all this when the authorities there accused Yang Tengbo, a Chinese businessman, of cultivating ties with Prince Andrew, the king’s brother, as part of an influence operation. America, though, is China’s most important target.
These types of activities fall under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), an American law that requires those engaging in political projects on behalf of a foreign actor to register and disclose what they are doing. In recent years the Justice Department has ramped up its enforcement of the act. The department conducted 25 FARA inspections in 2023, the most since 1985.
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