I had to look at several sources of this story to understand what the communist party was up to, but the short end is this; The Chinese government sent secret police to the US to harass, stalk, defame, and spy on legal US citizens. All in an attempt to sway US voters.
The AmericanMilitary shared some details but I also linked the court documents below so you can see the full scope of the offence:
U.S. Federal authorities arrested three people this week on suspicions of spying in America and stalking and harassing Chinese nationals in the U.S. on behalf of a Chinese secret police agency known as the Ministry of State Security (MSS). Another two suspects remain at large.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Wednesday cases brought against suspects two Chinese nationals — Qiming Lin and Quiang “Jason” Sun — and three Americans believed to be working on behalf of China —Shujun Wang, Fan “Frank” Liu and Matthew Ziburis. All five are charged as part of two criminal complaints that were unsealed this week and another complaint that was amended.
According to the prosecuting documents, “all the defendants allegedly perpetrated transnational repression schemes to target U.S. residents whose political views and actions are disfavored by the [People’s Republic of China] government, such as advocating for democracy in the PRC.”
“As alleged, all of the defendants charged today at the direction of the PRC secret police, engaged in a series of actions designed to silence the free speech of Chinese dissidents in the United States,” said Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael J. Driscoll of the FBI’s New York Field Office.
In one instance, Lin hired a PI to investigate a Brooklyn resident that was running for congress. Lin ordered the PI to ‘dig up dirt’ on the US citsen or invent some of he couldn’t find anything. He also suggested that as a last resort the PI should assault the man. The target was Xiong Yan, a US citizen who was a student leader in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
“Transnational repression harms people in the United States and around the world and threatens the rule of law itself,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “This activity is antithetical to fundamental American values, and we will not tolerate it when it violates U.S. law. The Department of Justice will defend the rights of Americans and those who come to live, work, and study in the United States. We will not allow any foreign government to impede their freedom of speech, to deny them the protection of our laws or to threaten their safety or the safety of their families.”
The other complaints listed in the case are just as strange and include a fake media company in New York that the group planned to use to conduct interviews to make victims look foolish or defame them.
The complaint doesn’t specify if the victims support any one particular us party, but seriously does it matter? It’s China, interfering with US elections and Free Speech. If convicted both men could face five years in prison for conspiring to commit interstate harassment and up to 15 years in prison for criminal use of a means of identification. Liu and Sun face up to five years each for conspiring to bribe a federal official. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, according to court documents.