Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Christopher Wray described The People’s Republic of China (PRC) as an “unparalleled” cybersecurity threat in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee meeting last week as he asked for a $11.4 billion FBI budget, a 5.5 percent increase from the bureau’s last budget.
In addition to the Bureau’s focus on cybersecurity, Wray highlighted requests for additional funding that would build up anti-violence initiatives, including $14.9 million to combat violent crime and $53.1 million to address an increase in DNA collection from tackling drug trafficking and transnational gang activity.
The proposed budget would include $63.4 million to enhance cyber investigative capabilities, $4.5 million to mitigate threats from foreign intelligence services and $27.2 million to enhance the FBI’s cybersecurity bearing and protect internal networks.
The proposed budget would be a 5.5 percent increase from the FBI’s 2023 fiscal year budget.
Wray’s appeal followed April charges from the Department of Justice targeting those connected to the operation of illicit, foreign police operations in New York City.
“There’s no country that presents a more significant threat to our innovation, our ideas, our economic security, our national security than the Chinese government. And that’s why we’ve grown the number of investigations into threats from China to about 1300 percent” Wray said in front of the committee on Thursday.
As Wray called for millions of dollars to bolster cybersecurity efforts to counter Chinese operations, he highlighted a lack of personnel to tackle the cybersecurity threats from multiple entities including the People’s Republic of China.
“Each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, on nothing but China, Chinese hackers will still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1,” Wray said.
“In recent years, we have seen a rise in efforts by authoritarian regimes to interfere with freedom of expression and punish dissidents abroad. These acts of repression cross national borders, often reaching into the United States,” Wray said in a statement submitted to the House Appropriations subcommittee.
“It’s important to note countries like China, Russia, and Iran stalk, intimidate, and harass certain people in the U.S. This is called transnational repression. It’s illegal, and the FBI is investigating it.”
Just a week earlier, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced charges for more than 30 police officers from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS), eight Chinese Government officials and two New York City residents on April 17 for the targeting of people on U.S soil from the Chinese diaspora who are in opposition to The People’s Republic of China and for illegally operating a secret Chinese police station in New York City that was discovered in late 2022.
“Unlike typical officers, the MPS officers that have been charged today aren’t focused on preventing crime, rather the complaints charge these MPS officers engaging in transnational repression, schemes, targeting the members of Chinese diaspora communities,” Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said at a press conference announcing the arrests.
“The MPS has repeatedly and flagrantly violated our nation’s sovereignty, including by opening and operating a police station in the middle of New York City,” Peace said.
The secret police station was said to be secretly engaged in mundane but illegal foreign consulate activities such as renewing drivers licenses but was also said to be involved in more sinister illegal acts including the tracking of a U.S citizen in California suspected to be pro-democracy Chinese dissident.
“Just imagine the NYPD opening an undeclared secret police station in Beijing, it would be unthinkable,” Peace said.
On April 17, a complaint was unsealed alleging that two New Yorkers, Lu Jianwang of the Bronx and Chen Jinping of Manhattan, had conspired to act on behalf of the People’s Republic, following an October 2022 search of the premises in New York and the seizure of their phones.
According to the FBI, the pair confessed to deleting communications between them and an MPS official that investigators believe included directions related to setting up the station.
The pair have been charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
“As alleged, the defendants were directed to do the PRC’s bidding, including helping locate a Chinese dissident living in the United States, and obstructed our investigation by deleting their communications with a Chinese Ministry of Public Security official, Such a police station has no place here in New York City—or any American community,” Peace said referring to findings by the FBI that LU had assisted China’s Ministry in locating a “pro-democracy” activist living in California.
The People’s Republic of China’s special police are also facing their own charges. Thirty four officers were charged with similar crimes to Lu and Chun and have been accused of harassing Chinese nationals in New York and across the country.
The defendants are alleged to be members of an elite Chinese police task force called the 912 Special Project Working Group. The group is said to operate a troll farm doing the work similar to the cases of Russian troll farms during the 2016 presidential elections.
These Chinese troll farms spread disinformation and are attempting to cause division on social media by specifically pushing narratives related to the advantages of China’s current political system over democracy, U.S. domestic and foreign policy, human rights issues in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Province, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and even civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the DOJ.
The troll farm is also alleged to have been specifically targeting Chinese nationals in the U.S. Targets included pro democracy activists that were exercising “free speech” in a way that is counter to the belief of the current Chinese government.
“China’s Ministry of Public Security used operatives to target people of Chinese descent who had the courage to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party,” FBI Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow said at a press conference announcing the charges.
“In one case by covertly spreading propaganda to undermine confidence in our democratic processes and, in another, by suppressing U.S. video conferencing users’ free speech,” Ronnow said.
Xinjiang “Julien” Jin, a former executive for a U.S. telecommunication company, has also been charged for allegedly acting as a liaison to the Chinese government, regularly responding to requests to end meetings and block users on video meetings. Charges against Jin were first announced in 2020, after he and co-conspirators allegedly blocked participants from meetings commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Now, six officers for the MPS, two officials with the Cyberspace Administration of China and another civilian have been charged alongside Jin for allegedly harassing and attempting to identify and track people within the U.S. with beliefs that challenge the Chinese government.
“As alleged, Julien Jin and his co-conspirators in the Ministry of Public Security and Cyberspace Administration of China weaponized the U.S. telecommunications company he worked for to intimidate and silence dissenters, and enforce PRC law to the detriment of Chinese activists in New York, among other places, who had sought refuge in this country to peacefully express their pro-democracy views,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny said. Pokorny thanked the company involved for assisting with the investigation.
“China firmly opposes the US’s slanders and smears, its political manipulation, the false narrative of ‘transnational repression’, and blatant prosecution of Chinese law enforcement and cyber administration officials,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, at a press conference shortly after the April 17 arrests.
“We urge the US to reflect on itself, abandon its Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, immediately stop the erroneous moves, end political manipulation and stop the smears and attacks against China.”
In response to the FBI director’s House testimony accusing China of stealing “more of our personal and corporate data than all other nations,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning pointed out what she described as the United States’ history of “massive surveillance and secret theft and cyber theft against its allies and the rest of the world.”
“Perhaps the U.S should take a hard look in the mirror before it points its fingers at another country,” Mao said.
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