[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 56 (Thursday, April 2, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E857-E858]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHINESE DEFECTOR CONFIRMS SYSTEMATIC GOVERNMENT REPRESSION
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HON. FRANK R. WOLF
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of my
colleagues the following article which appeared in the March 19 edition
of The Washington Times. Li Fengzhi, a former intelligence officer at
the Ministry of State Security, revealed that the agency is tasked with
repressing religious and political dissent among the Chinese civilian
population and bolstering the rule of the Chinese Communist Party in
addition to gathering secrets from overseas. I urge my colleagues to
carefully read Mr. Li's chilling account of the Communist Party's
systematic repression of religious and political dissidents.
[From the Washington Times, Mar. 19, 2009]
Chinese Spy Who Defected Tells All
(By Bill Gertz Contact)
A veteran Chinese intelligence officer who defected to the
United States says that his country's civilian spy service
spends most of its time trying to steal secrets overseas but
also works to bolster Beijing's Communist Party rule by
repressing religious and political dissent internally.
``In some sense you can say that intelligence work between
two countries is just like war but without the fire,'' Li
Fengzhi told The Washington Times in an interview aided by an
interpreter.
Mr. Li worked for years as an Ministry of State Security
intelligence officer inside
[[Page E858]]
China before defecting to the United States, where is he
awaiting a response to his request for political asylum. He
gave a rare, detailed interview to The Times on Sunday
regarding the activities of the MSS, China's Communist-
controlled civilian spy agency.
His prior work as a Chinese spy was confirmed to The Times
by a Western government source familiar with his defection.
The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of Mr. Li's case.
Mr. Li told The Times that the MSS focuses on both
counterintelligence--working against foreign intelligence
agencies--and the collection of secrets and technology.
The MSS, however, is unique from other nations'
intelligence services in that it is patterned after the
former Soviet Union's KGB political police. Its most
important mission is ``to control the Chinese people to
maintain the rule of the Communist Party,'' he added.
Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in
Washington, did not address Mr. Li's comments directly but
repeated past Chinese government statements regarding its
intelligence activities.
``Allegations of China conducting spying activities against
the United States are groundless and unwarranted,'' he said
Wednesday. ``China never engages itself in activities that
will harm other countries' national interests.''
Mr. Wang said communist rule in China produced historic
economic and social progress and that China has contributed
to a more secure world. ``This is a fact no one can deny,''
Mr. Wang said.
On those who leave the party, Mr. Wang said ``there are
also a handful of people who betray their faith and leave the
party, whose acts as well as some people's political lies
will never shadow the great feats of the party.''
Mr. Li said he left China's intelligence services to
protest the agency's role in government repression of
political dissidents and religious groups that are outside of
the ruling communist system.
The MSS, mainly a foreign intelligence service, is
``deeply'' involved in domestic repression of nonofficial
Christian churches and the outlawed Falun Gong religious
group, Mr. Li said.
``The Ministry of State Security is actually not doing
things for the security of the country, but rather they spend
a lot of effort to control the people, the dissidents, the
lower-class Chinese people, and make these people suffer and
also make their life miserable,'' he said.
In the interview, he also said:
China's spy agency is focused on sending spies to
infiltrate the U.S. intelligence community, and also on
collecting secrets and technology from the United States.
``China spends a tremendous effort to send out spies to
important countries like the U.S. to collect information,''
Mr. Li said.
China is censoring the Internet to prevent the population
from knowing about what occurs outside the country.
An internal MSS manual that is kept secret from most
officers outlines the primary role of the service as the
promotion of Communist Party's interests.
Ongoing cooperation between the CIA and FBI and the MSS in
countering international terrorism can be constructive, but
U.S. agencies need to be cautious because the MSS is mainly
an organ of the Chinese Communist Party, and does not
directly serve the interests of the Chinese nation or people,
he said.
Mr. Li said he worked in the MSS department in charge of
gathering economic, political and technical information in
Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Some of the work involved
targeting and recruiting foreign nationals who visit China.
He was born in 1968 in northern China and was first
recruited into a provincial Chinese intelligence service
before being promoted to the MSS in Beijing after several
years.
Two groups in China that are a main focus of the MSS are
unofficial Christian churches and the outlawed Falun Gong
religious group, he said.
The MSS also has targeted pro-democracy activists, like
those who were involved in the mass demonstrations in
Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, he said.
The MSS is China's main civilian spy service that is viewed
by U.S. intelligence officials as one of the world's most
active in stealing secrets and running foreign spies. The
military counterpart, the Second Department of the People's
Liberation Army, or 2PLA, is focused on stealing foreign
technology, much of it for weapons and military systems.
Together, the Chinese services are estimated to have
several thousand trained operatives working around the world,
most posing as diplomats, journalists, business
representatives and academics. Thousands of other Chinese
nationals also function as semiprofessional information
gatherers.
Former FBI Special Agent I.C. Smith, a specialist in
Chinese counterintelligence, confirmed that the MSS focuses
its activities on penetrating U.S. intelligence and
government agencies.
``The goal of every intelligence agency is to get someone
inside, and in the case of Chinese, they use not just
intelligence people but academics and everybody else,'' Mr.
Smith said in an interview.
Mr. Li said his access to information that was banned for
the general public helped him to turn against the system,
including internal reports on party ideology and information
on American values of freedom and democracy.
Mr. Li said that as a doctoral candidate, the MSS sent him
to study at an American university, an experience that
influenced in his decision to defect. In 2004, after he
defected, he was declared an enemy of the state by the MSS in
at least two notices sent to security offices in China.
According to U.S. counterintelligence officials, China,
unlike the Soviet Union, has had only a small number of
defections of intelligence officers like Mr. Li over the past
30 years.
Another spy who defected was a Chinese intelligence officer
known publicly by the code-name ``Planesman,'' who gave the
FBI data that led to 1985 arrest of CIA interpreter Larry Wu-
Tai Chin.
Another intelligence defector was Sr. Col. Yu Jungping, a
military intelligence officer once posted to the Chinese
Embassy in Washington who came over in the 1990s.
Mr. Li was in Washington to participate in a conference
sponsored by the Falun Gong, a Buddhist-oriented group that
advocates the replacement of the Chinese communist
government. Mr. Li said he announced his formal withdrawal
from the Communist Party at the conference, along with that
of his father, who is also in the United States.
Mr. Li said he is neither a Christian nor Falun Gong
member, but that his interest in religion and fear of being
persecuted by the MSS contributed to his decision to defect.
Mr. Li said he thinks there are significant numbers of pro-
democracy MSS officers inside the service, including those at
high levels, who do not support the party and are ``even
anti-Communsit Party'' but fear taking any action.
``But I sincerely hope these people can play a special role
in getting rid of the Communist Party,'' Mr. Li said.
The former intelligence officer, whose family left China
with him, said it took him several years to change his views.
``After a few years of my personal experience inside the
system, I really knew that the Communist Party is very bad,''
he said.
``My true ideal, actually, in this Chinese security
department is really to do something for the Chinese people
and the nation. But I really hated doing things just for the
interest of the Communist Party and a lot of times those
things that are in the interest of the Communist Party are
doing harm to the Chinese people.''
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