Czech Senate president meets Taiwan leader; Beijing protests
HUIZHONG WU
TAIPEI,
Taiwan (AP) — The Czech Senate president met with Taiwanese leader Tsai
Ing-wen and other top government officials Thursday during a rare trip
by a foreign dignitary to the self-ruled democratic island that rival
China called an “open provocation.”
Tsai presented a medal for Jaroslav Kubera, the late predecessor of Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil.
Kubera
died in January before making the trip, and Vystrcil said China’s
pressure, including a warning from the Chinese Embassy against
congratulating Tsai on her reelection, contributed to his decision to
travel to the island.
Tsai called Kubera a “great friend" and gave
a nod to Vystrcil's speech Tuesday, saying his words “I'm a Taiwanese”
had touched many hearts.
“Our
actions are telling friends in Europe and all over the world, whether
Taiwanese or Czechs, we will not succumb to oppression, will bravely
speak up, actively participate in international affairs, and contribute
our capabilities,” she said.
Beijing is furious about the Czech
delegation’s visit, with the foreign ministry summoning the Czech
Republic’s ambassador to lodge stern representations and saying the trip
amounted to “flagrant support of Taiwan independence.” China claims
Taiwan as its own territory and strongly objects to any official contact
between other countries and the self-governing island.
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday that Vystrcil's visit is an “open provocation.”
“China must tell the Czech Senate leader: You've crossed the line!” Wang said.
Vystrcil and Taiwan's foreign minister also refuted China's warnings.
“I
do not feel I have crossed any red line whatsoever,” Vystrcil said in
response to reporters' questions on Thursday. “We did not do anything
that would be an infringement of the One China policy.”
He added, “every country has the right to interpret the One China principle in their own way."
“We
are here to stay and Taiwan is not going anywhere," Taiwan's Foreign
Minister Joseph Wu said. ”Taiwan is trying to maintain the status quo
and the status quo is that Taiwan does not belong to China. Taiwan is
governed by its own people."
Vystrcil and Wu announced further cooperation in business, scientific research and democratic exchange.
Vystrcil
announced the formation of a working group from the Czech side
dedicated to cooperation on the economy and cybersecurity.
Tensions
between the Czech Republic and China have simmered since a dispute
between their capitals last year. They ended a sister-cities agreement
because Beijing had wanted Prague to agree to the “One China” principle,
which says Taiwan is part of China.
In his address Tuesday,
Vystrcil directly referenced former President John F. Kennedy’s famed
1963 anti-communist speech in then-divided Berlin, and emphasized
democratic freedoms embraced since the Czech Republic threw off
communist rule at the end of the Cold War and Taiwan emerged from
martial law at the end of the 1980s.
“In 1963, the American
president JFK, in his famous speech ‘I’m a Berliner,’ clearly opposed
communism and political oppression and supported the people of West
Berlin,” Vystrcil said. “He said ‘Freedom is indivisible, and when one
man is enslaved, all are not free.’”
“Please let me use the same
manner to express my support to the people of Taiwan: ‘I’m a
Taiwanese,’” he said, speaking the last phrase in Mandarin Chinese.
----
Japan, U.S. defence chiefs oppose bid to alter status of Asian waters
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Japan's Defence Minister Taro Kono said on Saturday he had
agreed with his U.S. counterpart Mark Esper that both countries opposed
any unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the key waterways of
the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
Kono shared his view
with the U.S. defense secretary at a time when the United States and
China are at loggerheads over issues ranging from technology and human
rights to Chinese military activities in the disputed South China Sea.
A thorny issue in China's ties with Japan is Beijing's claim to a group of tiny East China Sea islets controlled by Tokyo.
"We
agreed that the international community will respond firmly to any
unilateral change to the status quo in the South China Sea as well as
the East China Sea," Kono said.
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He was speaking online from Guam to reporters in the Japanese capital following his meeting with Esper.
Kono
said Esper had confirmed that the U.S.-Japan security treaty covered
the East China Sea islets, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the
Diaoyu islands in China.
Turning to Japan's domestic politics,
Kono said he would think hard about running in a ruling party election
to choose a successor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who abruptly
announced his resignation for health reasons on Friday.
The United
States has long opposed China's expansive territorial claims in the
South China Sea and has sent warships regularly through the strategic
waterway.
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.
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka, Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by William Mallard and Clarence Fernandez)
NASA chief Jim Bridenstine told lawmakers
Wednesday it was crucial for the US to maintain a presence in Earth's
orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned so that
China does not gain a strategic advantage.
The first parts of the ISS were launched in 1998 and it has been continuously lived in since 2000.
The
station, which serves as a space science lab and is a partnership
between the US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, is currently expected
to be operated until 2030.
"I'll tell you one thing that has me
very concerned -- and that is that a day is coming when the
International Space Station comes to the end of its useful life," said
Bridenstine.
"In order to be able to have the United States of
America have a presence in low Earth orbit, we have to be prepared for
what comes next," he added.
To that end, NASA has requested $150
million for the 2021 fiscal year to help develop the commercialization
of low Earth orbit, defined as 2,000 km (1,200 miles) or less from the
planet's surface.
"We want to see a public-private partnership
where NASA can deal with commercial space station providers, so that we
can keep a permanent uninterrupted human presence in low Earth orbit,"
said Bridenstine.
"I don't think it's in the interest of the
nation to build another International Space Station -- I do think it's
in the interest of the nation to support commercial industry, where NASA
is a customer."
Bridenstine warned the lawmakers this was
critical to maintain US space supremacy in the face of a planned Chinese
space station that Beijing hopes will be operational by 2022.
The
station is named Tiangong, meaning Heavenly Palace, and in June Chinese
state media announced it was partnering with 23 entities from 17
countries to carry out scientific experiments on board.
These
countries included both developed and developing countries, such as
France, Germany and Japan, as well as Kenya and Peru, according to
Xinhua news agency.
"China is rapidly building what they call the
'Chinese International Space Station,' and they're rapidly marketing
that space station to all of our international partners," said
Bridenstine.
"It would be a tragedy, if, after all of his time,
and all of this effort, we were to abandon low Earth orbit and cede that
territory."
He explained that the microgravity of ISS offered
great potential for scientific advances, from innovations in
pharmaceuticals to printing 3D human organs to the creation of
artificial retinas to treat people with macular degeneration.
Bridenstine
said that it was therefore necessary to fund NASA to pay companies to
set up a space station, where it would be one of several customers in
order to drive down its own costs.
This, he added, was vital to "ultimately not cede that territory to another country that doesn't have our interests at heart."
ia/ch
----
China has 'comprehensive plan' to steal US technology, secrets: Gen. Jack Keane
Gen. Jack Keane on an NYPD officer being accused of acting as a Chinese Communist Party agent and new sanctions on Iran.
----
World
An NYPD officer and US Army reservist has been arrested and accused of spying on Tibetan New Yorkers for China
acollman@businessinsider.com (Ashley Collman)
Baimadajie Angwang, a
33-year-old NYPD officer and US Army reservist, was arrested on Monday
and accused of spying for China, multiple reports say.
Federal prosecutors said in their complaint
that Angwang spied on Tibetans living in New York and offered Chinese
officials access to NYPD officials and information about the
department.
He started working with a handler in the
Chinese consulate in New York in 2018, but had been in contact with
consulate officials as early as 2014, the complaint said.
Angwang
became a naturalized US citizen after seeking asylum under the claim
that he had been arrested and tortured in China "due partly to his
Tibetan ethnicity," the complaint said.
In reality, both
of his parents are Chinese Communist Party members and his brother is a
reservist in the People's Liberation Army, the complaint said.
Baimadajie
Angwang, a 33-year-old NYPD officer and US Army reservist, was arrested
on Monday and accused of spying for China, multiple reports say.
Federal prosecutors said in their complaint
that Angwang spied on Tibetans living in New York and offered Chinese
officials access to NYPD officials and information about the
department.
He started working with a handler in the
Chinese consulate in New York in 2018, but had been in contact with
consulate officials as early as 2014, the complaint said.
Angwang
became a naturalized US citizen after seeking asylum under the claim
that he had been arrested and tortured in China "due partly to his
Tibetan ethnicity," the complaint said.
In reality, both
of his parents are Chinese Communist Party members and his brother is a
reservist in the People's Liberation Army, the complaint said.
A
New York Police Department officer and US Army reservist with a
"secret" security clearance has been arrested and accused of spying for
China, according to multiple reports.
Baimadajie Angwang, a 33-year-old married father of one, was arrested at his home on Long Island on Monday, the New York Daily News reported.
He
later appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court where he was charged with
acting as an agent of a foreign government, wire fraud, and making false
statements â€" charges that could see him face up to 55 years in
prison, the outlet said.
Federal prosecutors have accused Angwang
of working with a handler in the Chinese consulate and passing on
intelligence about Tibetans living in New York, according to a criminal complaint obtained by CBS New York.
The
complaint also said that Angwang provided "information from NYPD
systems" to Chinese officials and and gave them "access to senior NYPD
officials through invitations to official NYPD events."
Angwang works as a community officer in the 111th precinct in Queens.
China
has occupied Tibet, a region in the Himalayan mountains, since the
1950s. However, many Tibetans view the Buddhist Dalai Lama, who fled
Tibet in 1959, as their leader and want independence from China.
According
to the complaint, Angwang is said to have come to the country initially
on a cultural exchange visa, overstayed a second visa, and then sought
asylum in the US "on the basis that he had allegedly been arrested and
tortured" in China "due partly to [his] Tibetan ethnicity."
But US
officials threw that claim into question in the complaint, pointing out
that both of his parents are Chinese Communist Party members, his
mother used to work for the Chinese government, and his brother is a
reservist in the People's Liberation Army.
All three still live in
China, and Angwang has "traveled back to the PRC [People's Republic of
China] on numerous occasions since his asylum application was granted,"
the New York Post reported, citing court filings.
The
complaint added that Angwang started corresponding with Chinese
consular officials as far back as 2014, became an NYPD officer in 2016,
and started working with a handler at the consulate in 2018.
According to the complaint, Angwang told his handler in a recorded conversation in 2019: "Must bring glory to the Chinese."
The
handler, whom Angwang called "Boss," is believed to work for the China
Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture division
of the Chinese government's United Front Work Department, the complaint
said.
The United Front Work Department is an agency that collects intelligence from around the world for the Chinese government.
According
to the complaint, it is also responsible for "neutralizing sources of
potential opposition to the policies and authority of the PRC" and for
maintaining "control over potentially problematic groups, such as
religious and ethnic minorities."
It appears that Angwang was paid handsomely for this work.
According
to CBS New York, which cited the complaint, Angwang has received nearly
$120,000 by wire transfer from the Chinese government since 2016.
Meanwhile,
during fiscal year 2019, the city of New York paid Angwang a salary of
about $53,500, according to online records viewed by the Post.
Business
Insider was unable to contact the Consulate General of the People's
Republic of China in New York outside its working hours on Tuesday.
In a Tuesday statement to Reuters,
the consulate did not comment directly on Angwang's case but said its
staff had been "fulfilling duties in accordance with international law
and the law of the United States," and called their work "above board
and beyond reproach."
'Violated every oath he took in this country'
Following
Angwang's arrest, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a statement
cited by CBS New York: "As alleged in this federal complaint, Baimadajie
Angwang violated every oath he took in this country. One to the United
States, another to the U.S. Army, and a third to this Police
Department."
Shea added that the NYPD's intelligence and internal affairs bureaus have been working with the FBI.
In
a separate statement, FBI Assistant Director of New York William
Sweeney Jr. also called Angwang "the definition of an insider threat."
"As
alleged, Mr. Angwang operated on behalf of a foreign government; lied
to gain his clearance, and used his position as an NYPD police officer
to aid the Chinese government's subversive and illegal attempts to
recruit intelligence sources," Sweeney said.
"The FBI is
committed to stopping hostile foreign governments from infiltrating our
institutions, and we will not tolerate the behavior of those who
willingly violate their oath to the United States, and covertly work
against their fellow citizens. We want to thank the NYPD for its
extraordinary partnership on this investigation."
US charges 5 Chinese citizens in global hacking campaign
ERIC TUCKER
Chinese Hackers Charged
Deputy Attorney General Jeffery Rosen
speaks, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020 at the Justice Department in
Washington. The Justice Department has charged five Chinese citizens
with hacks targeting more than 100 companies and institutions in the
United States and abroad, including social media and video game
companies as well as universities and telecommunications providers.
Officials announced the prosecution on Wednesday. (Tasos Katopodis/Pool
via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has
charged five Chinese citizens with hacks targeting more than 100
companies and institutions in the United States and abroad, including
social media and video game companies as well as universities and
telecommunications providers, officials said Wednesday.
The five
defendants remain fugitives, but prosecutors say two Malaysian
businessmen charged with conspiring with the alleged hackers to profit
off the attacks on the billion-dollar video game industry were arrested
in Malaysia this week and now face extradition proceedings.
The indictments are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to call out cybercrimes by China. In July, prosecutors accused hackers of working with the Chinese government
to target companies developing vaccines for the coronavirus and of
stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property
and trade secrets from companies across the world.
Though those
allegations were tailored to the pandemic, the charges announced
Wednesday — and the range of victims identified — were significantly
broader and involved attacks done both for monetary gain but also more
conventional espionage purposes.
In
unsealing three related indictments, officials laid out a wide-ranging
hacking scheme targeting a variety of business sectors and academia and
carried out by a China-based group known as APT41. That group has been
tracked by the cybersecurity firm Mandiant Threat Intelligence, which
described the hackers as prolific and successful at blending criminal
and espionage operations.
The hackers relied on a series of
tactics, including attacks in which they managed to compromise the
networks of software providers, modify the source code and conduct
further attacks on the companies' customers.
The Justice
Department did not directly link the hackers to the Chinese government.
But officials said the hackers were probably serving as proxies for
Beijing because some of the targets, including pro-democracy activists
and students at a Taiwan university, were in line with government
interests and didn't appear to be about scoring a profit.
“A
hacker for profit is not going to hack a pro-democracy group,” said
acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin of the District of Columbia, where
the cases were filed. Those targets, including some that bear the
“hallmark” of conventional espionage, point to the conclusion that the
hackers had at least an indirect connection with the government, Sherwin
said.
In addition, one of the five defendants told a colleague
that he was very close to the Chinese Ministry of State Security and
would be protected “unless something very big happens,” and also agreed
not to go after domestic targets in China, said Deputy Attorney General
Jeffrey Rosen.
But some of the conduct was clearly profit driven,
officials said. Two of the Chinese defendants, for instance, were
charged with breaking into video game companies and obtaining digital
currency that was then sold for profit on the black market, officials
said.
Rosen, the Justice Department's No. 2 official, criticized
the Chinese government for what he said was a failure to disrupt hacking
crimes and to hold hackers accountable.
“Ideally, I would be
thanking Chinese law enforcement authorities for their cooperation in
the matter and the five Chinese hackers would now be in custody awaiting
trial,” Rosen said. “Unfortunately, the record of recent years tells us
that the Chinese Communist Party has a demonstrated history of choosing
a different path, that of making China safe for their own cyber
criminals, so long as they help with its goals of stealing intellectual
property and stifling freedom.”
There was no immediate response Wednesday to an email seeking comment from the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
The
Justice Department also announced that it had seized hundreds of
accounts, servers and domain names used by the defendants and that it
had worked with Microsoft and other private sector companies to deny the
hackers continued access to tools, accounts and hacking infrastructure.
Also
Wednesday, the department announced charges against two Iranian
nationals accused of stealing hundreds of terabytes of data in a hacking
campaign targeting institutions — and perceived enemies of Iran — in
the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.
____
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
Pompeo hopeful China's Confucius Institutes will be gone from U.S. by year-end
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday he was
hopeful that Chinese Confucius Institute cultural centers on U.S.
university campuses would all be shut down by the end of the year.
"I
think everyone's coming to see the risk associated with them," Pompeo
told Lou Dobbs on the Fox Business Network, accusing the
Chinese-government funded institutes of working to recruit "spies and
collaborators" at U.S. colleges.
"I think these institutions can see that, and I'm hopeful we will get them all closed out before the end of this year."
Last
month, Pompeo labeled the center that manages the Confucius Institutes
in the United States "an entity advancing Beijing's global propaganda
and malign influence" and required it to register as a foreign mission.
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David
Stilwell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, said at the time that
the dozens of Confucius Institutes on U.S. campuses were not being
kicked out, but U.S. universities should take a "hard look" at what they
were doing on campus.
Pompeo was asked about a warning last month
by the Chinese government's top diplomat, Wang Yi, about the need to
avoid a new Cold War, an apparent reference to escalating tensions
between China and the United States.
Pompeo said "the Cold War analogy has some relevance," but the challenges with China were different.
"This is different from the Cold War in that we are challenged by a country with 1.4 billion people," he said.
"The challenges are different, they are economic challenges."
Pompeo
referred to actions the Trump administration has taken to restrict the
activities of Chinese firms like Huawei Technologies Co and said further
moves could be expected.
"And now you'll see a broader effort,
they'll be announcements, I think, in the coming days and weeks we will
see the United States confront this in a very serious way, all for the
benefit of the American economy," he said.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Brown)
Chinese national arrested in U.S. probe of possible transfer of software to China
WASHINGTON,
Aug 28 (Reuters) - A Chinese national who is a researcher at a
California university was arrested and charged with destroying a
computer hard drive during an FBI investigation into the possible
transfer of sensitive software to China, the U.S. Justice Department
said on Friday.
Guan Lei, 29, of Alhambra, California, a
researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, was arrested
after he was seen throwing a damaged hard drive into a dumpster outside
his apartment in July, the department said in a statement.
"Guan
is being investigated for possibly transferring sensitive U.S. software
or technical data to China’s National University of Defense Technology"
and falsely denying his association with the Chinese military on his
visa application and in interviews with federal agents, the Justice
Department said.
The statement did not say when the investigation started.
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Guan
made an initial court appearance on Friday and an arraignment was
scheduled for Sept. 17, the statement said. The felony offense of
destruction of evidence carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in
federal prison. (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Leslie Adler)
----
Trump administration taps Vietnam refugee as new ICE chief
Tim O'Donnell
The Trump administration is tapping Tony Pham, the top attorney for
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as the new head of the agency,
The Washington Examiner and BuzzFeed News reported Tuesday.
Pham was born
in what was then Saigon, South Vietnam (now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
and came to the United States as a refugee in 1975 and became a U.S.
citizen 10 years later. BuzzFeed notes
the Trump administration has dramatically cut the U.S. refugee program.
Prior to joining ICE, Pham was a prosecutor in Richmond, Virginia, and
later oversaw the Virginia Peninsula Regional jail.
"As a seasoned
leader with [the Department of Homeland Security], Tony will ensure ICE
continues to safeguard our country's borders from crime and illegal
immigration," an ICE spokesperson told BuzzFeed.
