Kính thưa quý cộng đồng người Việt tỵ nạn cộng sản, các quý cơ quan truyền thông báo chí và thân hữu.
Xét thấy nội dung của các hoạt động văn hóa của Saigonfilms.com trong 20 năm qua (2000-2020) đã rất lớn lao, phong phú và có quá nhiều chi tiết mà những Web Sites, Blog của nó hiện nay không thể hệ thống các dữ kiện một cách mạch lạc để trình bày hiệu quả trước công chúng và cho những ai quan tâm. Xét thấy nhu cầu cần có một Media Outlet (Cơ sở loan tải thông tin) hiệu quả, phổ thông và có danh xưng để dư luận dễ dàng nhận ra và theo dõi nội dung văn hóa của VNCH. Nay, chúng tôi mạo muội thành lập một Google™ Blog với domain name (sẽ thông báo sau) nȇu bật các giá trị văn hóa, giáo dục, phẩm hạnh người lính VNCH, và nhấn mạnh chủ quyền VNCH đối với các hải đảo tại Biển Ðông. Nay kính gởi: --- Bản Dự Thảo (Draft) cho Google™ Blog Tổ Chức Văn Hóa Việt Nam Cộng Hòa Republic of Vietnam Culture Organization (RVNCO) 1. Mục đích: Tái xây dựng và tiếp tục phát triễn các di sản văn hóa VNCH vào/cho tương lai dân tộc Việt Nam. 2. Những tài liệu căn bản làm khung sườn cho Dự Thảo của RVNCO: a. Quốc kỳ VNCH nền vàng ba sọc đỏ, và quốc ca VNCH. b. Bạch Thư Bộ Ngoại Giao VNCH in tại Sài Gòn 1975. c. Hồ Sơ Thềm Lục Ðịa nới rộng 350 hải lý và Bản đồ VNCH và các bản đồ chi tiết đính kèm, các tài liệu và Thư gởi TTK LHQ Ban Ki Moon do Ban Ðại Diện Cộng Ðồng Việt Nam Bắc California (VAC-NORCAL,) San Jose, Ca USA đệ trình Ủy Ban Luật Biển của LHQ cho ngày 13/5/2009. d. Những tác phẩm lịch sử về đường biȇn giới Việt –Trung do Sông Hồng (Hoàng Hoa) dịch và biȇn soạn in tại San Jose, Ca năm 2002. e. Các tài liệu văn bản chính thức của Bộ Ngoại Giao Hoa Kỳ về nước Việt Nam trong thời gian Hoa Kỳ can dự vào tình hình, hoàn cảnh Việt Nam kể từ (trong thời gian) Hiệp Ðịnh Geneva 1954. 3. Các tư liệu văn hóa lịch sử cận đại hiện nay: a. Các videos, Web sites, links, tài liệu và các dự án phát triễn Little Saigon San Jose (LSSJ) do Hoàng Hoa thực hiện trong thời gian thực hiện và phát triễn LSSJ kể từ năm 2004. b. Các videos, Web Sites, tài liệu và hình ảnh văn hóa về Little Saigon San Francisco do Hoàng Hoa thực hiện kể từ năm 2004. c. Các videos và tài liệu ghi chép về sinh hoạt cộng đồng mgười Việt tỵ nạn cộng sản tại San Jose do Hoàng Hoa thực hiện. 4. Các phương tiện truyền thông cơ hữu trách nhiệm: Blog Vietnam Review VNR, các tư liệu videos trȇn kȇnh SaigonFilms Media trȇn Youtube™, Web Site www.saigonfilms.com, www.littlesaigonsjid.com 5. Sơ lược các Dự án ban đầu (initiative): a. Các phóng đồ nghiȇn cứu hoạt động của Hải quân VNCH trong thời gian bảo vệ đất nước. b. Sưu tầm, nghiȇn cứu, các tư liệu phȇ bình giòng nhạc lính (giòng nhạc Boléro) trước năm 1975 và tính văn hóa của người lính VNCH trong lịch sử văn hóa dân tộc Việt Nam. Phân tích vai trò, tính văn hóa và tình yȇu nhân bản của người lính VNCH trong chiến tranh bảo vệ người dân và giữ nước. Tính văn hóa và phẩm hạnh, sự hy sinh cao cả của người lính VNCH khi miền Nam rơi vào tay quân CSBV ngày 30/4/1975 làm gương sáng cho giáo dục nhân bản VNCH. c. Tái cấu trúc sơ đồ hình ảnh các quân trường, huấn khu, biệt khu, trung tâm huấn luyện. d. Xem xét tái cấu trúc các trại tù cải tạo của CSBV nhằm giam giữ các người lính VNCH sau năm 1975. e. Tái cấu trúc, hình ảnh các trường học tư thục và công lập, các trường bình dân học vụ, và các trung tâm văn hóa. Tiểu sử các thầy cô.
6. Bản Dự thảo này được dịch sang Anh ngữ và thông báo lưu trữ trȇn Blog VNR Cơ Quan Ngôn Luận Chính Thức của Tổ Chức Văn Hóa VNCH, và có thể được bổ sung thȇm các chi tiết khi có nhu cầu. Trân trọng Hoàng Hoa Viettrade_net@yahoo.com San Jose, ngày 24/7/2020
US hits China anew for rights abuses in western Xinjiang
MATTHEW LEE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration
took new aim at China on Friday by imposing sanctions on a major
paramilitary organization in the country’s western Xinjiang region and
its commander for alleged human rights abuses against ethnic and
religious minorities.
The State and Treasury departments announced
the penalties as the White House denounced authorities in Hong Kong for
postponing local government elections ostensibly because of the
coronavirus pandemic. Criticism of the election delay, which Beijing
approved, also came just a day after President Donald Trump suggested
putting off November’s U.S. presidential vote.
The sanctions,
which freeze any assets the targets may have in U.S. jurisdictions and
perhaps more significantly bar Americans from doing business with them,
hit the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, its commander and
former political commissar for alleged abuses against Uighur Muslims,
including mass arbitrary detentions, forced labor and torture.
The
production and construction corps is a major operation consisting of 14
military-style divisions that reports to the Chinese Communist Party
and is in charge of billions of dollars in development projects in
Xinjiang, including mining and energy exploration.
"The
United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial
powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across
the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. The
sanctions were imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, which provides
authority for the administration to penalize human rights abusers
abroad.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the two officials
targeted — the commander, Peng Jiarui, and the former commissar, Sun
Jinlong — would also be subject to U.S. visa restrictions. The Trump
administration has previously sanctioned other officials in Xinjiang
subjecting them to travel bans.
Meanwhile, the White House lashed
out at the postponement of the upcoming Hong Kong elections in comments
likely to draw accusations of hypocrisy from China after Trump's tweeted
suggestion on Thursday that the U.S. elections be postponed to prevent
fraud from mail-in ballots expected to flood the polls because of the
virus outbreak.
“We condemn the Hong Kong government’s decision to
postpone for one year its legislative council elections and to
disqualify opposition candidates,” White House press secretary Kayleigh
McEnany said. “This action undermines the democratic processes and
freedoms that have underpinned Hong Kong’s prosperity and this is only
the most recent in a growing list of broken promises by Beijing."
Earlier
Friday, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced the government was
invoking an emergency ordinance to postpone the highly anticipated
legislative elections by a year, citing a worsening coronavirus
outbreak.
The postponement is a setback for the pro-democracy
opposition, which was hoping to capitalize on disenchantment with the
current pro-Beijing majority to make gains. A group of 22 lawmakers
issued a statement ahead of the announcement accusing the government of
using the outbreak as an excuse to delay the vote.
---
World
US ramps up sanctions over Uighur abuses with penalties on powerful Chinese paramilitary group
The U.S. has sanctioned
a powerful Chinese paramilitary organization in the country's western
province, accusing it of playing a key role in the detention and
repression of Muslim ethnic minorities.
The sanctions could have
far-reaching consequences, depending on their level of enforcement,
given the deep economic and political control of the group, the Xinjiang
Production and Construction Corps, in the Xinjiang region.
This round of penalties is also the second in just three weeks after President Donald Trump said earlier this month that he had withheld them for over a year to protect trade talks with China.
In recent weeks, his administration has bolted toward an increasingly
tough stance against Beijing as the Phase 1 trade deal all but fell
apart and the 2020 presidential election approaches.
On
July 9, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned regional officials and a security
agency for the repressive campaign against Uighurs and other ethnic
minorities that includes detaining over 1 million in "re-education" and forced labor camps, cracking down on practicing Islam and enforcing widespread sterilization practices.
China at first denied such camps existed, then defended them as a
counterterror operation; its foreign ministry has denied mass
sterilization.
"The Chinese Communist Party's human rights abuses in Xinjiang, China
against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities rank as the stain of the
century," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Friday.
In
addition to the XPCC, the Treasury Department is sanctioning the
organization's commander Peng Jiarui and a former senior official Sun
Jinlong.
The
latest actions mark a profound escalation in U.S. pressure. Described
as a "paramilitary organization" or a "farming militia," the XPCC is a
tool of the Chinese Communist Party first deployed in the 1950s to send
soldiers as pioneers or colonizers to Xinjiang, a largely undeveloped
region nearly 2,000 miles west of Beijing.
After years of
developing farmland, mining, and other industries, the XPCC now controls
huge portions of the region's economy, as well as critical security
functions. Analysts have reported
that the XPCC alone employs approximately 12% of the region's
population and accounts for 20% of the region's total economy, with even
larger shares of agriculture.
Pompeo accused the XPCC of being "directly involved in implementing"
what he called "a comprehensive surveillance, detention, and
indoctrination program" against Uighurs and other minorities.
It's
unclear if the XPCC has any assets in U.S. jurisdiction. But this now
puts any company, including American ones, at risk of U.S. sanctions if
they work in the region or have a supply chain with ties to it,
according to the U.S. Treasury, although teasing out those ties can be
difficult given how murky business in China can be.
"All
US companies (and foreign companies that do business in the US) should
be getting out of Xinjiang now (if they haven't already)," tweeted
Julian Ku, a professor at Hofstra University Law School.
Major
U.S. companies like Apple and Ralph Lauren are already struggling with
their commercial ties to Xinjiang after the U.S. Commerce Department
added to its list of blocked entities based in the region and several
agencies issued a joint warning of "legal risks" if companies' supply chains include the forced labor used in these internment camps.
On Capitol Hill Thursday, Pompeo said the administration hopes to use
these economic levers to change the Chinese government's behavior.
"I'm
really happy with the work we're making to convince businesses -- not
just American business because it's an international place of business
-- that they should really look hard at their supply chains -- not just
their direct employees, but their supply chains -- and what's taking
place there. I think if we get that right, we have the opportunity to
change what's taking place there," he told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.
Unleashing
economic pressure on China for the treatment of Uighurs is one of
several moves by the Trump administration to escalate its fight with
Beijing, including a declaration against its claims in the South China
Sea, a new round of arms sales to Taiwan, ending Hong Kong's special
economic status because of the crackdown on democracy and a crippling
campaign against Huawei, the telecommunications giant.
China is
likely to retaliate after Friday's sanctions, although its ability to do
so may be more limited. After the first round of sanctions this month,
it announced visa bans on U.S. ambassador-at-large for religious freedom
Sam Brownback, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. -- four Republicans who have been outspoken on
the Uighur detention camps.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Chinese scientist
charged with visa fraud after authorities said she concealed her
military ties to China in order to work in the U.S. made her first
appearance Monday in federal court by video.
Juan Tang, 37, was
appointed a federal public defender and U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah
Barnes ordered Tang to remain in custody, saying she is a flight risk,
while her attorney prepares an argument to allow her release on bail.
The
Justice Department last week announced charges against Tang and three
other scientists living in the U.S., saying they lied about their status
as members of China’s People’s Liberation Army. All were charged with
visa fraud.
Prosecutors said Tang lied about her military ties in a
visa application last October as she prepared to work at the University
of California, Davis and again during an FBI interview in June. Agents
found photos of Tang dressed in military uniform and reviewed articles
in China identifying her military affiliation, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors
said Tang sought refuge at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco after
speaking with agents in June. U.S. marshals arrested her Friday and
booked her into Sacramento County Jail, where she remains.
Heather
Williams, a federal defender, said its common practice for people to
seek help from their consulate when dealing with law enforcement abroad,
and doing so did not make Tang guilty of anything, she said..
Williams added that U.S. agents took Tang's passport, forcing her young daughter to travel to China alone.
It's too soon to know what the photos of Tang mean, and she might have made a mistake on the visa application, the lawyer said.
“We
do know that our government seems to be increasingly hostile to China
and we hope Dr. Tang isn’t paying the price for that hostility," she
said.
The University of California, Davis said Tang left her job
in June as a visiting researcher in the Department of Radiation
Oncology.
The arrests come as tensions rise between China and the U.S.
-----
World
Escalating tensions could lead to US-China military clash: Gordon Chang
----
World
How a Chinese agent used LinkedIn to hunt for targets
Kevin Ponniah - BBC News
Jun Wei Yeo, an ambitious and freshly enrolled Singaporean PhD
student, was no doubt delighted when he was invited to give a
presentation to Chinese academics in Beijing in 2015.
His
doctorate research was about Chinese foreign policy and he was about to
discover firsthand how the rising superpower seeks to attain influence.
After
his presentation, Jun Wei, also known as Dickson, was, according to US
court documents, approached by several people who said they worked for
Chinese think tanks. They said they wanted to pay him to provide
"political reports and information". They would later specify exactly
what they wanted: "scuttlebutt" - rumours and insider knowledge.
He
soon realised they were Chinese intelligence agents but remained in
contact with them, a sworn statement says. He was first asked to focus
on countries in South East Asia but later, their interest turned to the
US government.
That
was how Dickson Yeo set off on a path to becoming a Chinese agent - one
who would end up using the professional networking website LinkedIn, a
fake consulting company and cover as a curious academic to lure in
American targets.
Alumni
at Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), which
trains some of Asia's top civil servants and government officials, were
left shocked by the news that their former peer had confessed to being a
Chinese agent.
"He was a very active student in class. I always
viewed him as a very intelligent person," said one former postgraduate
student who did not wish to be named
She said he often talked
about social inequality - and that his family struggled financially when
he was a child. She said she found it difficult to reconcile the person
she knew with his guilty plea.
A former member of staff at the
institution painted a different picture, saying Yeo seemed to have "an
inflated sense of his own importance".
Yeo's PhD supervisor had
been Huang Jing, a high-profile Chinese-American professor who was
expelled from Singapore in 2017 for being an "agent of influence of a
foreign country" that was not identified.
Huang Jing always denied those allegations. After leaving Singapore, he first worked in Washington DC, and now Beijing.
During
one meeting he was asked to specifically obtain information about the
US Department of Commerce, artificial intelligence and the Sino-US trade
war.
Bilahari Kausikan, the former permanent secretary at
Singapore's foreign ministry, said he had "no doubt that Dickson knew he
was working for the Chinese intelligence services".
He was not, he said, "an unwitting useful fool".
Yeo
made his crucial contacts using LinkedIn, the job and careers
networking site used by more than 700 million people. The platform was
described only as a "professional networking website" in the court
documents, but its use was confirmed to the Washington Post.
Former
government and military employees and contractors are not shy about
publicly posting details of their detailed work histories on the website
in order to obtain lucrative jobs in the private sector.
In
2017, Germany's intelligence agency said Chinese agents had used
LinkedIn to target at least 10,000 Germans. LinkedIn has not responded
to a request for comment for this story but has previously said it takes
a range of measures to stop nefarious activity.
Some of the
targets that Yeo found by trawling through LinkedIn were commissioned to
write reports for his "consultancy", which had the same name as an
already prominent firm. These were then sent to his Chinese contacts.
One
of the individuals he contacted worked on the US Air Force's F-35
fighter jet programme and admitted he had money problems. Another was a
US army officer assigned to the Pentagon, who was was paid at least
$2,000 (£1,500) to write a report on how the withdrawal of US forces
from Afghanistan would impact China.
In finding such contacts,
Yeo, who was based in Washington DC for part of 2019, was aided by an
invisible ally - the LinkedIn algorithm. Each time Yeo looked at
someone's profile it would suggest a new slate of contacts with similar
experience that he might be interested in. Yeo described it as
"relentless".
According to the court documents, his handlers
advised him to ask targets if they "were dissatisfied with work" or
"were having financial troubles".
William Nguyen, an American former student at the Lee Kuan Yew school who was arrested at a protest in Vietnam in 2018 and later deported,
said in a Facebook post on Saturday that Yeo had tried to contact him
"multiple times" after he was released from prison and his case made
headlines around the world.
In 2018, Yeo also posted fake online
job ads for his consulting company. He said he received more than 400
CVs with 90% of them coming from "US military and government personnel
with security clearances". Some were passed to his Chinese handlers.
The
use of LinkedIn is brazen, but not surprising, said Matthew Brazil, the
co-author of Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer.
"I
think lots of worldwide intelligence agencies probably use it to seek
out sources of information," he said. "Because it's in everybody's
interest who is on LinkedIn to put their whole career on there for
everybody to see - it's an unusually valuable tool in that regard."
He
said that commissioning consultant reports is a way for agents to get
"a hook" into a potentially valuable source who might later be convinced
to supply classified information.
"It's a modern version of classic tradecraft, really."
US
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said the
case was an example of how China exploits "the openness of American
society" and uses "non-Chinese nationals to target Americans who never
leave the United States".
Singapore, a multicultural society of
5.8 million where ethnic Chinese make up the majority of the population,
has long enjoyed close links with the United States, which uses its air
and naval bases. But it has also sought and maintained positive
relations with China.
Mr Kausikan said that he did not believe the
spying case - the first known to involve a Singaporean - would hurt the
country's reputation with the American government but he feared that
Singaporeans could face greater suspicion in American society.
A
spokesperson at the school told the BBC that Yeo had been granted a
leave of absence from his PhD in 2019 and his candidature had now been
terminated.
Dickson Yeo does not appear to have got as far with
his contacts as his handlers would have liked. But in November 2019, he
travelled to the US with instructions to turn the army officer into a
"permanent conduit of information", his signed statement says.
He was arrested before he could ask.
----
World
Australia rejects Beijing's South China Sea claims, backing US
Chinese navy ships, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, during military drills in the South China Sea
Chinese navy ships, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, during military drills in the South China Sea (AFP Photo/STR)
Sydney
(AFP) - Australia has rejected Beijing's territorial and maritime
claims in the South China Sea in a formal declaration to the United
Nations, aligning itself more closely with Washington in the escalating
row.
In a statement filed on Thursday, Australia said there was
"no legal basis" to several disputed Chinese claims in the sea including
those related to the construction of artificial islands on small shoals
and reefs.
"Australia rejects China's claim to 'historic rights'
or 'maritime rights and interests' as established in the 'long course of
historical practice' in the South China Sea," the declaration read.
"There
is no legal basis for China to draw straight baselines connecting the
outermost points of maritime features or 'island groups' in the South
China Sea, including around the 'Four Sha' or 'continental' or
'outlying' archipelagos."
The
declaration comes after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared
Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in the South China Sea as
illegal, explicitly backing the territorial claims of Southeast Asian
countries against China's.
Beijing claims almost all of the South
China Sea based on a so-called nine-dash line, a vague delineation from
maps dating back to the 1940s.
The latest escalation comes ahead
of annual talks between Australia and the United States, with ministers
travelling to Washington for the first time since Australian borders
were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The meetings come at a
"critical time" and it is essential they are held face-to-face, Foreign
Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said in a
statement on Saturday.
US relations with China have markedly
deteriorated in recent months, especially over trade disputes, the
coronavirus pandemic and Beijing's crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.
On
Friday, Beijing ordered the US consulate in Chengdu to shut in
retaliation for the closure of its Houston mission over accusations of
being a hub for intellectual property theft.
Payne and Reynolds
also penned an article in The Australian newspaper on Saturday,
labelling national security legislation imposed on Hong Kong last month
as "sweeping and vague".
"We face a public health crisis, economic
upheaval and resurgent authoritarian regimes using coercion in a bid to
gain power and influence at the expense of our freedoms and
sovereignty," they wrote.
----
Reuters
Australia says China's South China Sea claims are unlawful
MELBOURNE
(Reuters) - Australia has joined the United States in stating that
China's claims in the South China Sea do not comply with international
law in a declaration likely to anger China and put more strain on their
deteriorating relations.
The United States this month rejected
China's claims to offshore resources in most of the South China Sea,
drawing criticism from China which said the U.S. position raised tension
in the region.
Australia, in a declaration filed at the United
Nations in New York on Friday, said it too rejected China’s maritime
claims around contested islands in the South China Sea as being
inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
"Australia
rejects China's claim to 'historic rights' or 'maritime rights and
interests' as established in the 'long course of historical practice' in
the South China Sea," it said.
Australia
also said it did not accept China's assertion that its sovereignty over
the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands was "widely recognised by
the international community", citing objections from Vietnam and the
Philippines.
China claims 90% of the potentially energy-rich
waters but Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also
lay claim to parts of it.
About $3 trillion worth of trade passes
through the waterway each year. China has built bases atop atolls in the
region but says its intentions are peaceful.
Australia has long
advocated for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and for all
claimants to resolve their differences in compliance with international
laws.
Its more outspoken position on China's claims comes after
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this month China had offered no
coherent legal basis for its ambitions in the South China Sea and for
years has been using intimidation against other coastal states.
The
world would not allow China to treat the South China Sea as its
maritime empire, Pompeo said, adding that the United States would
support countries that believed China has violated their maritime
claims.
The United States has long opposed China’s expansive
territorial claims on the South China Sea, sending warships regularly
through the strategic waterway to demonstrate freedom of navigation.
Australia's
declaration on China's claims comes as its foreign and defence
ministers prepare to travel to Washington to attend a bilateral forum on
July 28, the government said.
Diplomatic tension between China
and Australia has worsened recently over various issues including an
Australian call for an international enquiry into the novel coronavirus,
which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Robert Birsel)
-----
NBC News
Justice Department charges Stanford researcher with lying about ties to Chinese military
Phil Helsel and Andrew Blankstein
A Chinese woman living in the United States as
a visiting researcher at Stanford University has been charged with
lying about her ties to the Chinese military, federal prosecutors said
Monday.
Song Chen, 38, is accused of obtaining a visa by material
false statements, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District
of California said in a statement.
She
was arrested over the weekend and in federal custody Monday night, a
spokesman for the office said. A hearing is scheduled Tuesday that will
deal with detention issues.
Song is not accused of stealing or
sending any materials to China, but she is accused of lying on visa
forms in 2018 to apply to go to Stanford as a neurologist.
Court
documents say Song answered that she had been in the Chinese military
from September 2000 to June 2011, and that she worked at "Xi Diaoyutai
Hospital" in Beijing.
Federal prosecutors say those were lies, and
that was a member of the People’s Liberation Army when she entered the
U.S. in 2018 and when she was here.
They say that the hospital she claimed to work for "was a cover for her true employer, the PLA."
A
criminal complaint says Song is employed by a Chinese air force
hospital and maintained her affiliation after 2011. Investigators think
she is part of a " civilian cadre," whose members are considered active
duty military.
The case was sealed in online records Monday. A
phone message to an attorney who represented her in court Monday was not
immediately returned Monday evening.
A representative for Stanford declined to comment.
An
FBI agent who wrote an affidavit in the case wrote that in an interview
this month, Song "repeatedly and adamantly denied" any current
affiliation with the People's Liberation Army Air Force or the Chinese
military or Fourth Military Medical University.
She said,
according to the affidavit, that after graduating from Fourth Military
Medical University, which is described as a PLA Air Force university,
she disassociated from the Chinese military.
But prosecutors said
that research articles showed her affiliation with institutions under
the air force, and that investigators who searched her computer
recovered a deleted document of a letter to the Chinese consulate in New
York.
Song allegedly "wrote that her stated employer, Beijing Xi
Diaoyutai Hospital, is a false front," according to the U.S. attorney's
office.
The FBI agent who wrote the affidavit in the criminal
complaint wrote that the recovered letter "provides further evidence
that Song works for the PLA and was here on its behalf."
Song is an expert in myasthenia gravis, a rare disorder
that causes muscle weakness. A Stanford professor told an investigator
that Song's research benefitted the work in his lab, according to the
affidavit.
The charge of obtaining a visa by material false
statements is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to the
U.S. attorney's office.
Song is only charged with lying in visa forms.
But FBI Director Chris Wray said at an event earlier this month that that nearly half of the FBI's 5,000 active counterintelligence cases relate to China.
In
June, another Chinese national who is alleged to be an officer of the
Chinese military was arrested in California on accusations that he lied
on visa applications to come to the U.S. as a researcher at the
University of California, San Francisco, according to the Justice Department.
Xin
Wang, who federal prosecutors say is a scientific researcher and
officer with the PLA, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport
as he attempted to leave for China.
Federal prosecutors say he was
instructed by the director of his military university lab in China to
observe the layout of the lab at UC San Francisco so that it could be
replicated in there. Wang was also charged with visa fraud.
----
U.S.
Chinese researcher charged with US visa fraud is in custody
JANIE HAR
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Chinese researcher
accused of concealing her ties to the Chinese military on a visa
application she submitted so she could work in the U.S. was booked
Friday into a Northern California jail and was expected to appear in
federal court Monday.
Sacramento County jail records show Juan
Tang, 37, was being held on behalf of federal authorities after she was
arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service. It was unclear if she had an
attorney who could comment on her behalf.
The Justice Department
on Thursday announced charges against Tang and three other scientists
living in the U.S., saying they lied about their status as members of
China’s People’s Liberation Army. All were charged with visa fraud.
Tang
was the last of the four to be arrested, after the justice department
accused the Chinese consulate in San Francisco of harboring a known
fugitive. The consulate did not immediately respond to email and
Facebook messages seeking comment and it was not possible to leave a
telephone message.
The
Justice Department said Tang lied about her military ties in a visa
application last October as she made plans to work at the University of
California, Davis and again during an FBI interview months later. Agents
found photos of Tang dressed in military uniform and reviewed articles
in China identifying her military affiliation.
UC Davis said Tang
left her job as a visiting researcher in the Department of Radiation
Oncology in June. Her work was funded by a study-based exchange program
affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, the university said in a
statement.
Agents have said they believe Tang sought refuge at the
consulate after they interviewed her at her home in Davis on June 20.
The FBI has been interviewing visa holders in more than 25 American
cities suspected of hiding their ties to the Chinese military.
The
allegations came as U.S.-China relations continued to deteriorate,
particularly over allegations of Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual
property.
China's consulate in Houston was scheduled to shut down
Friday on order of U.S. authorities after Washington accused Chinese
agents of trying to steal medical and other research in Texas.
In response, China on Friday ordered the U.S. to close its consulate in the city of Chengdu.
---
CBS News Videos
China vows revenge after U.S. orders consulate in Houston to close
China is vowing retaliation after the U.S. ordered Beijing to close its
consulate in Houston. China received the order on Tuesday, before
reports that someone was burning documents in the courtyard of the
consulate. The U.S. said the facility was ordered closed "to protect
American intellectual property and Americans' private information."
----
World
People
are burning documents at the Chinese Consulate in Houston, as Beijing
says the US abruptly gave it 72 hours to shut it down
An image from video footage appearing to show documents being burned in the courtyard of China's Houston consulate.
Twitter/ KPRC2Tulsi/Breaking 911
People were seen burning documents at the Chinese Consulate in Houston, and fire services were called to the scene.
The
police told multiple outlets that people were burning documents in what
appeared to be open trash cans. It is not clear what those documents
were.
It came as China said the US
ordered the consulate to be closed in an "unprecedented escalation."
Chinese state media reported that the US had given China 72 hours to
close it.
The State Department said the closing was ordered to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information.
China
painted the decision in light of strained US-China relations, claiming
the US "has repeatedly stigmatized China," and vowed to retaliate if the
US did not reverse its order.
People are burning documents at the Chinese Consulate in Houston after China said the US gave it 72 hours to close.
The local outlet ABC 13 reported early Wednesday morning that trash cans full of documents were being burned in the consulate's courtyard.
A police official told the Houston Chronicle that witnesses saw paper being burned in what appeared to be open trash cans outside the building.
The police also told the local outlet Fox26 Houston that a fire reported at the consulate on Tuesday evening was the result of people burning documents. KPRC 2 reported that the police were told documents were being burned just after 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday.
One witness told KPRC 2: "You could just smell the paper burning."
Fox26
reported that police officers and the fire department were not allowed
onto the premises as it's considered Chinese territory. The police
official told the Houston Chronicle that the police were not allowed to
access the building.
Video footage appears to show documents being burned outside the building:
The Houston police department also tweeted about the apparent document burning.
"About
8:25 pm on Tuesday, our officers responded to a meet the firefighter
call to the China Consulate General in Houston building ... Smoke was
observed in an outside courtyard area," the department said. "Officers were not granted access to enter the building."
Business
Insider was unable to contact the Consulate General of the People's
Republic of China in Houston outside its working hours.
The news comes as China said the US abruptly ordered China to close it immediately.
"On
July 21, the US suddenly requested China to close the Consulate General
in Houston. This was a political provocation unilaterally initiated by
the US against China," a Chinese Foreign Ministry representative, Wang
Wenbin, said on Wednesday, calling it an "unprecedented escalation" in US-China relations.
In
a statement sent to Business Insider, the US State Department
representative Morgan Ortagus said: "We have directed the closure of PRC
Consulate General Houston, in order to protect American intellectual
property and American's private information," using an abbreviation for
the People's Republic of China.
"The United States will not
tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our
people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices,
theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," she added.
Wang
said the move "seriously violated international law and basic norms of
international relation" and damaged relations between the US and China.
"China
strongly condemns this. China urges the US to immediately revoke the
wrong decision," he said. "Otherwise, China will definitely make a
proper and necessary response."
Hu Xijin, the editor of China's state-backed Global Times newspaper, said the US gave China just 72 hours to close the consulate.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department charged
two Chinese state-backed hackers with hacking into the computer systems
of hundreds of companies, governments, and individual activists and
stealing their data. It is not clear whether these charges are related
to the ordered closing.
China has four other consulates in the US —
in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco — as well as an
embassy in Washington, DC.
The Foreign Ministry statement said the
Houston consulate was being closed "unilaterally" by the US "for a
limited time." It did not specify a deadline given by the US.
The ministry also criticized the US's treatment of China.
"For
a period of time, the US government has repeatedly stigmatized China,
conducted unprovoked attacks on China's development, unreasonably made
things difficult for Chinese diplomatic and consular staff in the US,
and intimidated, interrogated, and confiscated personal electronic
equipment from Chinese students studying in the US," it said, without
giving evidence to back up its charges.
Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, said: "President Trump insists on fairness and reciprocity in US-China relations."
Sen.
Marco Rubio, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
celebrated the move to close the consulate in a tweet. The Florida
Republican referred to the Chinese consulate in Houston as a "massive spy center."
"#China's
consulate in #Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central
node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence
operations in the United States. Now that building must close & the
spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen," Rubio said. The New York Times noted that while ordering a consulate closed was a strong step, it was one that had been taken before in disputes between countries.
For
example, the US ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco
in 2017 after Russia restricted the number of diplomats the US could
have in Moscow.
An unidentified source told Reuters
that Beijing was considering closing the US consulate in the Chinese
city of Wuhan in retaliation, but China's next moves remain unclear.
Tensions
between the US and China have reached historic heights in the Trump
era, with top experts warning that the two major powers are on the brink of a new Cold War. Though he praised China's handling of COVID-19 early on, President Donald Trump shifted to blaming Beijing for the pandemic as the US coronavirus outbreak worsened, which has exacerbated the situation. The virus was originally detected in Wuhan.
"We're essentially in the beginnings of a Cold War," Orville Schell, the director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society, told Insider in May. "We are on a downward slide into something increasingly adversarial with China."
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