Monthly Archives: November 2017

Deport Those Chinese Operatives Now

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Have you read the newly released book titled ‘Bully of Asia’ by Steven W. Mosher? China is the single largest threat to global stability and Russia and Iran in second and third place.

Have you heard of the Thucydides Trap? China is an ascending power and just who is paying attention? Have you studied the fact that China is a major enabler of North Korea’s aggression behavior including the most recent launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile?

China is a thief. China has dispatched operatives throughout the West under the guise of cultural exchanges, students, temporary workers and journalists. It is all about espionage and cyberwar.

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Hey State Department and DHS, get these operatives outta here. By the way, are there any sanctions on China with regard to PLA Unit 61398?

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Have you wondered what happened to that Obama Asia Pivot that he announced in 2011? The United States needs to pivot again and now.

Why?

This Beijing-Linked Billionaire Is Funding Policy Research at Washington’s Most Influential Institutions

The Chinese Communist Party is quietly reshaping public opinion and policy abroad.

FP: The Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), located just a short walk from Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., is one of the top international relations schools in the United States. Its graduates feed into a variety of government agencies, from the State Department to the CIA, and the military. Its China studies program is especially well known; many graduates come away with expert knowledge of the language, culture, and politics of the United States’ most important strategic competitor.

In August, SAIS announced a new endowed professorship in the China Studies department as well as a new research project called the Pacific Community Initiative, which aims to examine “what China’s broader role in Asia and the world means for its neighbors and partners.”

What the SAIS press release did not say is that the money for the new initiatives came in part from the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a Hong Kong-based nonprofit. CUSEF is a registered foreign agent bankrolled by a high-ranking Chinese government official with close ties to a sprawling Chinese Communist Party apparatus that handles influence operations abroad, known as the “united front.”

The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation’s partnership with a premier U.S. academic institution comes amid a Chinese Communist Party push to strengthen its influence over policy debate around the globe. The Chinese government has sought to repress ideas it doesn’t like and to amplify those it does, and its efforts have met with growing success.

Even as Washington is embroiled in a debate over Russian influence in U.S. elections, it’s China that has proved adept at inserting itself in American politics.

“The Chinese approach to influence operation is a bit different than the Russian one,” said Peter Mattis, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. “The Russian one is much more about an operational objective and they work backward from that objective, saying, ‘How do we achieve that?’” But on the Chinese side, Mattis said, “they focus on relationships — and not on the relationships having specific takeaway value, but that someday, some way, those relationships might become valuable.”

The Chinese seek a kind of “ecological change,” he explained. “If they cultivate enough people in the right places, they start to change the debate without having to directly inject their own voice.”

The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation was founded in 2008 by Tung Chee-hwa, a Hong Kong shipping magnate who later served as the chief executive of the former British colony, where he championed the benefits of close ties to Beijing. Tung’s Hong Kong-based nonprofit conducts academic and professional exchanges, bringing U.S. journalists, scholars, and political and military leaders to mainland China. It also has funded research projects at numerous U.S. institutions, including the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Atlantic Council, the Center for American Progress, the East-West Institute, the Carter Center, and the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

Tung’s foundation’s ties to the united front are indirect, but important. Tung currently serves as the vice chairman of one of the united front’s most important entities — the so-called Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which is one of China’s two rubber-stamp assemblies.

The body is one of Beijing’s most crucial tentacles for extending influence.

In its newest project with SAIS, the foundation describes the Pacific Community Initiative as a “joint research project.” David Lampton, director of the university’s China Studies Program, said in an August press release that the new professor “will also be responsible for running our Pacific Community Initiative and work closely with the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation in Hong Kong.”

Lampton also confirmed that CUSEF funded the new programs. “Both the Initiative and the Professorship were made possible through the support of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation,” he said in an emailed statement to Foreign Policy.

But he denied that CUSEF had attached any intellectual strings to its funding.

“There are absolutely no conditions or limitations imposed upon the Pacific Community Initiative or our faculty members by reason of a gift or otherwise,” Lampton told FP. “We have full confidence in the academic integrity and independence of these endeavors.”

CUSEF denies it acts as a vehicle for Beijing’s ideological agenda or has “any connections” to the united front. “We do not aim to promote or support the policies of any one government,” wrote a spokesperson for the foundation in an email.

This isn’t the first time SAIS and the foundation have worked together; they co-sponsored a conference on China’s economy in Hong Kong in March 2016, according to the school’s website. But a professorship and a major research project offer an opportunity for broader reach — the kind of global influence that Chinese President Xi Jinping has made a centerpiece of his policies. In October, at the meeting of the Communist Party that sets the national agenda for the next five years, Xi called for an expansion of the party’s overseas influence work, referring to the united front as a “magic weapon” of party power.

That quest to shape the global view of China isn’t the same thing as soft power, said James Leibold, a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne who researches Chinese influence in Australia, where Beijing’s recent influence operations have sparked a national controversy.

China is an authoritarian state where the Communist Party rules with an iron fist, Leibold said — and that is what Beijing is trying to export.

“What we’re talking about here is not Chinese influence per se, but the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.”

In a joint project like the one at SAIS, that influence can be subtle rather than being heavy-handed, said Jamestown’s Mattis. “It’s the ability to privilege certain views over others, to create a platform for someone to speak,” he said. “When you have a role in selecting the platform and generating what I presume they hope are some of the bigger reports on U.S.-China relations in the next few years, that’s important.”

One goal of the joint research project is, in fact, to “yield a white paper to be submitted for endorsement by both the U.S. and Chinese governments,” a CUSEF spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to FP.

While CUSEF representatives stress that it is not an agent of the Chinese Communist Party, the foundation has cooperated on projects with the the People’s Liberation Army and uses the same Washington public relations firm that the Chinese Embassy does.

One of those PLA projects is the Sanya Initiative, an exchange program that brings together U.S. and Chinese former high-ranking military leaders. On the Chinese side, the Sanya Initiative is led by a bureau of the PLA that engages in political warfare and influence operations, according to Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute.

Sometimes the results of such high-level exchanges aren’t subtle. In February 2008, PLA participants in the Sanya Initiative asked their U.S. counterparts to persuade the Pentagon to delay publishing a forthcoming report about China’s military buildup, according to a segment excised from the 2011 annual report of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

The U.S. members complied, though their request was not successful.

Exchanges and partnerships are not CUSEF’s only initiatives. As a registered foreign agent, in 2016 it spent just under $668,000 on lobbying, hiring the Podesta Group and other firms to lobby Congress on the topic of “China-U.S. relations.” The foundation has spent $510,000 on lobbying to date in 2017.

CUSEF also keeps on retainer the consulting and public relations firm BLJ Worldwide LTD, the same firm the Chinese Embassy in the United States uses. According to FARA filings, CUSEF currently pays the firm $29,700 a month to promote the foundation’s work and run a pro-Beijing website called China US Focus.

Whether through websites, partnerships, or endowments, China has learned to wrap its message in a palatable wrapper of U.S. academics and intellectuals, according to Mattis.

“Who better to influence Americans than other Americans?” he said.

Due to N Korea, Hawaii Goes to Nuclear Warning Systems

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TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Japan has detected radio signals suggesting North Korea may be preparing for another ballistic missile launch, although such signals are not unusual and satellite images did not show fresh activity, a Japanese government source said on Tuesday.

After firing missiles at a pace of about two or three a month since April, North Korean missile launches paused in September, after Pyongyang fired a rocket that passed over Japan’s northern Hokkaido island.

“This is not enough to determine (if a launch is likely soon),” the source told Reuters.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported late on Monday that the Japanese government was on alert after catching such radio signals, suggesting a launch could come in a few days. The report also said the signals might be related to winter military training by the North Korean military.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing a South Korean government source, also reported that intelligence officials of the United States, South Korea and Japan had recently detected signs of a possible missile launch and have been on higher alert.

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Hawaii reinstates Cold War-era nuclear attack warning signal amid North Korea tension

Hawaii is reinstating a statewide nuclear attack warning signal in December to prepare for a potential attack from North Korea.

The alarm, which has not been used since the Cold War, will be reinstated on Dec. 1 as part of a ballistic missile preparedness program, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA).

The agency instructed residents to immediately “Get inside, stay inside and stay tuned” if they hear the siren. Alerts will be sent to resident’s phones and broadcast on television and radio. “When [HI-EMA] started this campaign, there were concerns we would scare the public. What we are putting out is information based on the best science that we have on what would happen if that weapon hit Honolulu or the assumed targets,” said HI-EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi during an emergency preparedness presentation.

Since officials would have only 15 minutes or less of warning time before a North Korean missile’s impact, Hawaii residents are advised to have a designated place to go for shelter. “There will be no time to call our loved ones, pick up our kids and find a designated shelter. We should all prepare and exercise a plan ahead of time so we can take some comfort in knowing what our loved ones are doing,” said Miyagi in an interview with The Honolulu Star Advertiser.

Although the U.S. has conducted successful missile interception tests, there is no guarantee that the Navy would detect and intercept a target, the HI-EMA warns.

An HI-EMA fact sheet explains that, based on the estimated yield of North Korean missiles, there could be anywhere from 50,000 to 120,000 burn casualties and nearly 18,000 fatalities if an attack occurs.

After an attack, residents would have to stay sheltered in place until the HI-EMA has fully assessed the radiation and fallout, which could take a few hours or as long as 14 days, the agency says on its website.

State officials have been holding town halls to answer questions from residents.

North Korea and Iran Hint at Deeper Military Cooperation

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WI: Pyongyang has emerged as a critical partner in Tehran’s ‘Axis of Resistance,’ and officials warn that their joint efforts may extend to weapons of mass destruction.

High-level meetings between North Korean and Iranian officials in recent months are stoking concerns inside the U.S. government about the depth of military ties between the two American adversaries. In September, President Trump ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct a fresh review of any potential bilateral nuclear collaboration. Yet officials in Washington, Asia, and the Middle East who track the relationship indicate that Pyongyang and Tehran have already signaled a commitment to jointly develop their ballistic missile systems and other military/scientific programs.

North Korea has vastly expanded its nuclear and long-range missile capabilities over the past year, developing intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially target the western United States with nuclear warheads. Over the same period, U.S. intelligence agencies have spotted Iranian defense officials in Pyongyang, raising the specter that they might share dangerous technological advances with each other. “All of these contacts need to be better understood,” said one senior U.S. official working on the Middle East. “This will be one of our top priorities.”

SUSPICIOUS MEETINGS

In early August, Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s number two political leader and head of its legislature, departed Pyongyang amid great fanfare for an extended visit to Iran. The official reason was to attend the inauguration of President Hassan Rouhani, but the length of the visit raised alarm bells in Washington and allied capitals. North Korean state media said the trip lasted four days, but Iranian state media said it was ten, and that Kim was accompanied by a large delegation of other top officials.

Kim had last visited Tehran in 2012 to attend a gathering of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Cold War-era body composed of developing nations that strived to be independent of Washington and the Kremlin. Yet he skipped most of the events associated with that conference, instead focusing on signing a bilateral scientific cooperation agreement with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to U.S. intelligence officials, that pact looked very similar to the one Pyongyang inked with Syria in 2002; five years later, Israeli jets destroyed a building in eastern Syria that the United States and UN believe was a nearly operational North Korean-built nuclear reactor. Notably, one of the Iranian officials who attended the 2012 gathering with Kim was Atomic Energy Organization chief Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who was sanctioned by Washington and the UN for his alleged role in nuclear weapons development.

Similarly, Kim’s latest trip focused on more than just lending support to Rouhani, according to North Korean and Iranian state media. Kim and Vice Foreign Minister Choe Hui-chol inaugurated their country’s new embassy in Tehran, a symbol of deepening ties between the two governments. They also held a string of bilateral meetings with foreign leaders, many from countries that have been significant buyers of North Korean weapons in recent decades (e.g., Zimbabwe, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia). The Trump administration has been intensifying diplomatic pressure on all these countries to cut their economic and military ties with Pyongyang in response to the regime’s barrage of nuclear and missile tests this year.

Regarding missile development, Iran and North Korea presented a united front against Washington during Kim’s stay. Like Pyongyang, Tehran has moved forward with a string of ballistic missile tests in recent months, despite facing UN Security Council resolutions and condemnation by the Trump administration. After meeting with Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani on August 4, Kim declared, “Iran and North Korea share a mutual enemy [the United States]. We firmly support Iran on its stance that missile development does not need to be authorized by any nation.”

COVERT CONTACTS

The meetings that have gone unreported in state media are even more worrisome for allied governments. In recent years, U.S. and South Korean intelligence services have tracked a steady stream of Iranian and North Korean officials visiting each other in a bid to jointly develop their defense systems. Many of the North Koreans are from defense industries or secretive financial bodies that report directly to dictator Kim Jong-un, including Offices 39 and 99 of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

Last year, U.S. authorities reported that missile technicians from one of Iran’s most important defense companies, the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, had traveled to North Korea to help develop an eighty-ton rocket booster for ballistic missiles. One of the company’s top officials, Sayyed Javad Musavi, has allegedly worked in tandem with the Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. (KOMID), which the United States and UN have sanctioned for being a central player in procuring equipment for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. For example, Shahid Hemmat has illegally shipped valves, electronics, and measuring equipment to KOMID for use in ground testing of space-launch vehicles and liquid-propellant ballistic missiles.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

North Korea has emerged as a critical partner in the alliance of states, militias, and political movements known as the “Axis of Resistance,” which Tehran developed to challenge U.S. power in the Middle East. Pyongyang has served as an important supplier of arms and equipment to Iran’s most important Arab ally, Syria’s Assad regime, during the country’s ongoing war. And Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have procured weapons from North Korea in their efforts to topple the internationally recognized government in Yemen, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Moreover, Kim Yong-nam’s August trip appeared to have official support from Russia and China. On his way to Iran, he first flew to Vladivostok on Air Koryo, the North Korean airline that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned in December 2016 for financially aiding the Kim regime and its ballistic missile program. He then flew on to Tehran via Russia’s state carrier, Aeroflot, passing through Chinese airspace.

Going forward, the most pressing question is whether a smoking gun will emerge proving direct nuclear cooperation between Iran and North Korea. The U.S. government and the International Atomic Energy Agency say they have yet to see such conclusive evidence. But Iranian opposition groups allege that senior regime officials have visited North Korea to observe some of its six nuclear weapons tests. Chief among these officials, they add, is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian general whom the UN has accused of working closely with Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani on secret nuclear weapons research. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials say these accusations cannot be ruled out, so all known contacts between the two regimes need to be scrutinized closely.

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***Going back in history with evidence:

In 2010, the Assad regime transferred Scud-D missiles,[7] as well as a number of M-600 missiles (that have a 250Km range and carry a 500Kg warhead) – a clone of the Iranian Fateh-110. Syria provided Hezbollah operatives with training on using the Scuds at a base near Damascus.[8]

The Assad regime procured systems from Russia, which were to be partially or fully transferred to Hezbollah. Those included advanced Russian anti-air defense systems– such as the Pantsir S1-E and SA-17 BUK systems – as well as sophisticated anti-ship systems, like the Yakhont P-800.[9] It was believed that Hezbollah was the end user for some of these systems, which were kept in the group’s weapons depots on the Syrian side of the border.[10] Prior to the 2006 war, Syria also transferred Russian-made Kornet anti-tank weapons to Hezbollah, which then used these weapons against Israel.[11] As the war in Syria has intensified, Hezbollah began moving some of these advanced systems out of Syria. In January, according to media reports,[12] the Israeli Air Force struck a convoy inside Syria that was likely attempting to transfer SA-17 anti-aircraft systems to Hezbollah.

Cutout Arms Purchases from Russia

Such Syrian straw purchases, as well as other arms deals with Russia for the Syrian military itself, appear to have been bankrolled by Iran.[13] As part of this deal, some of the weapons that Damascus procured were then passed on to Tehran. This is an old practice dating back to the Iraq-Iran war, when the Assad regime purchased weapons from the Soviet bloc on Iran’s behalf and Iranian planes transferred them to Tehran.

For instance, in 2007, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that Syria agreed to send Iran at least 10 Pantsir air-defense systems that Damascus was buying from Russia. This deal was part of “the military and technological cooperation mechanism stipulated in a strategic accord signed by both countries in November 2005.”[14] Sources indicate that Syria may have received and installed the systems in August 2007, or one month before the Israeli attack on the Syrian nuclear facility at al-Kibar.[15]

Also in 2007, the Russian daily Kommersant revealed that Moscow’s Rosoboronexport arms export company was to deliver five MiG-31E fighter jets and an unspecified number of MiG-29M/M2 fighter bombers to Syria. Iran paid for the purchase may have been the intended end-user.[16] That particular deal seems never to have materialized. However it did reveal an important and dangerous aspect of the Iranian-Syrian partnership – one that extends well beyond cutout purchases of conventional weapons.

Aside from Russia, the principal strategic partner of the Iranian and Syrian regimes has been North Korea.

North Korean assistance has been instrumental in developing both Iran and Syria’s ballistic missile programs. Pyongyang’s cooperation with Tehran is particularly close, so much so that the two countries have been described as maintaining “in effect a joint missile development program.”[17] Iranian teams have regularly attended North Korea’s long-range missile tests, and Tehran has received North Korean technology. Iran’s Shahab-3 missile (1,300-1,500Kms), for example, is based on North Korea’s Nodong missile, the development program which was reportedly financed by Iran.[18]

In 2010, there was a debate on whether Pyongyang had sold Tehran BM-25 missiles that could hit Western Europe. At the time, a senior US intelligence official said that while he was unaware of any sale of a complete BM-25, there was probably a transfer of kits, made up of missile components. “There has been a flow of knowledge and missile parts” from North Korea to Iran, he said.[19] Iran’s quest for a first strike capability and delivery systems for its nuclear weapons program suggests that cooperation with North Korea will only grow.

Pyongyang and Iran have helped Syria develop its ballistic missile program. Syria relied on North Korean technology to upgrade its Scuds. In 2005, Syria tested Scud-D missiles, but the test ended in failure, as the missile fell apart over Turkey. Another test in 2007 was successful, thanks to technological assistance from North Korea that further improved the Scud-D and extended its range. In the early 1990’s, the North Koreans helped the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) construct missile complexes in Aleppo and Hama. The Aleppo facility was also used for fitting chemical warheads on Scud missiles. An explosion at the facility in July 2007 shed further light on the Syrian-Iranian-North Korean triangle.

The explosion took place as the Syrian regime was attempting to weaponize Scud-C missiles with chemical agents. According to a report in Jane’s Defence Weekly at the time, the explosion resulted in the death of “dozens” of Iranian engineers.[20] The Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun also claimed that three North Korean engineers were among the dead.[21]

Jane’s described the weaponization effort as part of a joint program with Iran. According to the weekly, Iran helped Syria in “the planning, establishment and management” of five facilities designed for the “indigenous production of CW [chemical weapons] precursors.” The presence of North Korean personnel at the site indicates that this was in fact a trilateral collaboration. More here.

Congressman Conyers, an Icon and a Socialist

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defended Rep. John Conyers as “an icon in our country” on Sunday, after noting he deserves “due process” as he faces allegations of sexual misconduct.

“We are strengthened by due process,” the California Democrat said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Just because someone is accused — and was it one accusation? Is it two? I think there has to be — John Conyers is an icon in our country. He has done a great deal to protect women — Violence Against Women Act, which the left — right-wing — is now quoting me as praising him for his work on that, and he did great work on that.

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Great Nancy….do you also consider his other affiliations in your ‘icon’ remark?

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Observer: Our national panic regarding sexual harassment of women by powerful men has claimed its first scalp in the nation’s capital. As of now, Minnesota Democrat Al Franken is staying in the Senate, some embarrassing incidents notwithstanding, while Alabama Republican Roy Moore may get there yet, despite multiple reports of his dalliances with underage girls. Of course, the grabber-in-chief in the White House shows no signs of going anywhere either, at least until even worse videotapes appear.

Michigan Democrat John Conyers, however, has taken a direct hit and has stepped down from his House leadership roles, including as the ranking member of the powerful Judiciary Committee, in the wake of press reports which depict him as a serial harasser and worse. This is a stunning fall for the 27-term Congressman, at present the House of Representatives’ longest-serving member, who has been prominent on his party’s left wing for more than a half-century.

In other words, the 88-year-old Conyers is no average member of Congress. The results of the House Ethics Committee investigation of his relations with female staffers are not yet in, and let it be said that all Americans are innocent until proven guilty. However, the allegations against Conyers, if true, portray the esteemed veteran of the civil rights movement in a troubling light. For now, he’s professing his innocence and standing his ground, indicating he has no intention of resigning from the House, where he has served since 1965.

His defenders cite that the elderly Conyers grew up in a profoundly different age, and that he has not adapted to current sensitivities about sexual matters. That said, it probably didn’t help him that yesterday Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, brushed off allegations against Conyers with the statement that he “is an icon in our country.” The implication that there are different rules for icons didn’t sit well with some Americans—after all, Bill Cosby was a national icon too, until recently—and Pelosi’s soundbite seems certain to feature in Republican ads next year in advance of the midterm election.

Nevertheless, there’s considerable irony regarding how Conyers is being treated by fellow Democrats, given the party’s current obsession with Russian espionage and propaganda—at least when it involves Republicans. The so-called “resistance” to Donald Trump is all the rage right now among Democrats, particularly on the party’s left wing, of which Conyers has been a prominent member of since the mid-1960s. While Pelosi and other “resisters” denounce President Trump and Kremlin malfeasance non-stop these days, Conyers has been notably silent about Russian spy-games.

That’s because, whatever inappropriate things Conyers may (or may not) have done with female staffers, he’s unquestionably been uncomfortably pro-Moscow for decades. Cursory examination of Conyers’ words and actions reveal a politician who is, at best, a longstanding dupe of the Kremlin. Worst of all, this “secret” aspect to Conyers’ political life has been hiding in plain sight for years, something that polite people didn’t bring up at Georgetown soirées, yet which was known to anybody who can access Google.

However, in the current hothouse climate regarding Russian spies and lies in our nation’s capital, Conyers’ ties to the Kremlin need to be discussed. From the beginning of his political career, Conyers had close relations with prominent members of the Communist Party USA, and he was a longtime member of the National Lawyers Guild, a CPUSA-affiliated group, as well as a leader of its Detroit chapter. Conyers never made much effort to mask his associations with known CPUSA members, even after being elected to Congress. Keep in mind that, as proven by KGB files, the CPUSA was a wholly-owned Kremlin operation, clandestinely funded by Soviet spies, and operating under Moscow’s direction.

Conyers went further and associated with known KGB fronts. He was long active in the World Peace Council—which sounds like a Quaker-run group but was founded by the Kremlin at the beginning of the Cold War. The WPC followed the Moscow line religiously, serving as a conduit for KGB Active Measures against the West, regularly denouncing American “war-mongering” and “imperialism” while coordinating anti-NATO protests in many countries.

With the publication of the Mitrokhin archive in 1999, the KGB’s supervisory relationship to the WPC was made public, though it was obvious long before to anyone who wanted to see that the latter was a leading Kremlin front for espionage and propaganda. Not that Conyers was deterred from involvement with the WPC, and he helped establish its American chapter, the U.S. Peace Council. He addressed its inaugural meeting in Philadelphia in November 1979, alongside numerous KGB agents, including Romesh Chandra, a prominent Indian Communist who headed the WPC for decades and was a senior operative of the Soviet secret police.

Such public actions did not go undetected, and on occasion the press made note of Conyers’ ties to the WPC and other Soviet fronts, particularly in the early 1980s, when KGB Active Measures against NATO reached their peak. It should be noted that Conyers was hardly the only left-wing Democrat in Washington who cultivated links to Kremlin spy-fronts during the Cold War.

American counterintelligence had questions, too. Investigating members of Congress was always a touchy issue for our counterspies, given the political sensitivities, but Conyers’ chumminess with the KGB was noted in our Intelligence Community. The benign take on Conyers’ questionable associations was that he was a mere dupe, a “useful idiot” to use the proper term. Others weren’t so sure, and when I asked a veteran IC counter-intelligencer who had checked out Conyers back in the 1980s, he responded with a wry smile: “Do you really think anybody’s that stupid?”

Moreover, this isn’t just a historical matter. Conyers has continued to follow the Moscow line on countless issues down to the present day. Back in 2010, when WikiLeaks was busy dumping hundreds of thousands of stolen classified State Department files on the Internet, Conyers came to the defense of Julian Assange and his cyber-criminal gang, stating that WikiLeaks had committed no crimes. That was a remarkable thing for the then-chair of the House Judiciary Committee to say, particularly when the leadership of his own party—including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—proffered a radically different take on the case.

Since WikiLeaks barely bothers to conceal its Kremlin links these days, questions abound regarding Conyers’ public defense of the group which did so much damage to the Democrats and their presidential nominee in 2016. Even as relations with Moscow have soured since Russia’s seizure of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in early 2014, Conyers has continued to spout Kremlin propaganda, as he has done for decades.

In June 2015, Conyers went on a tirade against Ukraine on the floor of the House, denouncing Kyiv’s military as “neo-Nazi”—a slander that was quickly parroted by Kremlin mouthpieces online. He stated that Ukraine should not get anti-aircraft missiles from Washington, citing as evidence the shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, the murder of 299 innocents—without noting that it was Russians, not Ukrainians, who downed the civilian airliner. It comes as no surprise that the bill amendment before the House to block anti-air missiles for Ukraine that was sponsored by Conyers was arranged by the notorious pro-Kremlin lobbyist Paul Manafort—the very same swamp macher who’s now facing indictments over his shady ties to President Trump and the Russians.

Conyers’ decades of spouting unfiltered Kremlin propaganda is so notorious in Washington that last year the Huffington Post, nobody’s idea of a right-wing outlet, ran a piece on him entitled “Putin’s Man in Congress.” That charge seems fair, based on the evidence, and is something that needs public discussion, particularly as Washington prepares to root out Moscow’s secret spy-propaganda apparatus in our nation’s capital.

That dirty apparat has been at work for decades. Kremlin disinformation didn’t begin with Donald Trump, and any thorough investigation of Russian espionage will reveal plenty of collaborators in Washington, on both sides of the political aisle. Some of them will even be Democratic “icons.” If the “resistance” isn’t willing to confront the bipartisan nature of the Kremlin’s clandestine political warfare against our country, they need to get out of the amateur counterspy business before they do real damage to our democracy.

3 Chinese Nationals Charged with Hacking, Stealing Intellectual Property

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Indictment found here.

Wonder if President Trump has called President Xi….The U.S. Treasury should at least sanction Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited….

Pittsburgh:

The Justice Department on Monday unsealed an indictment against three Chinese nationals in connection with cyberhacks and the alleged theft of intellectual property of three companies, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.

But the Trump administration is stopping short of publicly confronting the Chinese government about its role in the breach. The hacks occurred during both the Obama and Trump administrations.
The charges being brought in Pittsburgh allege that the hackers stole intellectual property from several companies, including Trimble, a maker of navigation systems; Siemens, a German technology company with major operations in the US; and Moody’s Analytics.
US investigators have concluded that the three charged by the US attorney in Pittsburgh were working for a Chinese intelligence contractor, the sources briefed on the investigation say. But missing from court documents filed in the case is any explicit mention that the thefts were state-sponsored.
A 2015 deal between then-President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping prohibits the US and China from stealing intellectual property for the purpose of giving advantage to domestic companies.
In recent months some US intelligence agencies have concluded that China is breaking the agreement, sources briefed on the matter say. But there’s debate among intelligence officials about whether there’s sufficient evidence to publicly reveal the Chinese government’s role in the infractions, these people say.
Obama administration officials had touted the Obama-Xi agreement, as well as 2014 Justice Department charges against members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for commercial espionage, for reducing some of the Chinese cyberactivity against companies in the US.
But the 2015 Obama-Xi deal was met with skepticism inside the US agencies whose job it is to guard against Chinese cyberactivity targeting US companies. Some now say there was only a brief drop in the number of cyberspying incidents, if at all.
In the waning months of the Obama administration, intelligence officials briefed senior White House officials on information showing that the Chinese cyberattacks were back to levels previously seen, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Early in the Trump administration, US intelligence officials briefed senior officials, including the President and vice president, as well as advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon. More here.
***

Acting U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania Soo C. Song charged Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao and Xia Lei with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, conspiracy to steal trade secrets, wire fraud and identity theft.

The most serious charge, wire fraud, carries a sentence of up 20 years in federal prison. Each conspiracy charge has a possible sentence of up to 10 years and the identity theft carries a sentence of up to two years.

The indictment alleged that Wu, Dong and Xia worked with Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited, a Chinese cybersecurity firm in Guangzhou, but used their skills to launch attacks on corporations in the U.S.

Between 2011 and May 2017, the trio stole files containing documents and data pertaining to a new technology under development by Trimble, along with employee usernames and passwords and 407 gigabytes of proprietary data concerning Siemens’ energy, technology and transportation efforts, according to the indictment. The trio gained access to the internal email server at Moody’s Analytics and forwarded all emails sent to an “influential economist” working for the firm, the indictment stated. Those emails contained proprietary and confidential economic analyses, findings and opinions. The economist was not named in the indictment.

A Siemens spokesperson said that the company “rigorously” monitors and protects its infrastructure and continually detects and hunts for breaches. The company did not comment on the alleged breach by the Chinese hackers and declined to comment on internal security measures.

Michael Adler, a spokesman for Moody’s Analytics, said that to the company’s knowledge no confidential consumer data or other personal employee information was exposed in the alleged hack.

“We take information security very seriously and continuously review and enhance our cybersecurity defenses to safeguard the integrity of our data and systems,” Adler wrote in an email to the Tribune-Review.

Trimble, in a statement sent to the Trib, wrote that no client data was breached. The company concluded that the attack had no meaningful impact on its business.

Song, however, said the loss to the companies targeted was considerable.

“The fruit of these cyber intrusions and exfiltration of data represent a staggering amount of dollars and hours lost to the companies,” Song said.

Wu, Dong and Xia used “spearphish” emails to gain access to computers, spread malware to infect networks and covered their tracks by exploiting other computers known as “hop points.”

Hop points allow users to hide their identities and locations by routing themselves through third-party computer networks.

“But there were missteps that led our investigators right to them,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Bob Johnson of the Pittsburgh office.

Johnson would not elaborate on the missteps the accused hackers took, claiming doing so could jeopardize future investigations.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office led the investigation and was assisted by the FBI’s Pittsburgh Division, the Navy Criminal Investigative Service Cyber Operations Field Office and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.