Espionage involving China

[siegecrossbow]

The recent purge of top military officials from China's Central Military Commission serves as a political Rorschach test, revealing more about observers' biases than about Chinese governance itself. Anti-China hawks and Xi skeptics predictably frame these removals as evidence of systemic incompetence and dictatorial paranoia, particularly given the relentless nature of Xi's anti-corruption drive.

Yet this interpretation overlooks a crucial inconsistency: if "saving face" truly governed Xi's decision-making—as Western analysts often claim about Chinese culture—why would he publicly humiliate and prosecute officials with whom he has longstanding personal connections? The very public nature of these harsh charges suggests either that the corruption allegations have substance or that Xi's political calculus operates on principles more complex than simple face-saving concerns.

I am resisting the urge to use the C word but you know what are really latching on any wins they can get recently as the established world order is crumbling around them. When even Chinese libs know what’s up you know that things are dire…

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“If the war is lost, the people will be lost also. It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for elemental survival. On the contrary, it is best for us to destroy even these things. For the nation has proved to be the weaker, and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation. In any case only those who are inferior will remain after this struggle, for the good have already been killed.”
— Adolf Hitler, April 1945 from Berlin Bunker.

 

[latenlazy]

The recent purge of top military officials from China's Central Military Commission serves as a political Rorschach test, revealing more about observers' biases than about Chinese governance itself. Anti-China hawks and Xi skeptics predictably frame these removals as evidence of systemic incompetence and dictatorial paranoia, particularly given the relentless nature of Xi's anti-corruption drive.

Yet this interpretation overlooks a crucial inconsistency: if "saving face" truly governed Xi's decision-making—as Western analysts often claim about Chinese culture—why would he publicly humiliate and prosecute officials with whom he has longstanding personal connections? The very public nature of these harsh charges suggests either that the corruption allegations have substance or that Xi's political calculus operates on principles more complex than simple face-saving concerns.

Well you see XJP is an autocrat so he's incompetent. If he makes a scene going after guys he elevated himself he's trying to save face and failing. If he keeps corrupt officials around which we know are corrupt because the PLA is forever and ever corrupt XJP is *also* trying to save face and failing because our hand chosen insiders will tell us the truth checkmate!

(If it's not clear my point here is that the tabloid gossip logic around this story is genuinely incoherently stupid. Without concrete facts to act as basic validity checks people can spin anything to sound authentic if they just know how to knock on the correct erogenous zones of a person's brain stem. Maybe people who want to be well informed should exercise a bit more intellectual discipline and not be so eager to fall for the psyop).

 

[Brainsuker]

Well you see XJP is an autocrat so he's incompetent. If he makes a scene going after guys he elevated himself he's trying to save face and failing. If he keeps corrupt officials around which we know are corrupt because the PLA is forever and ever corrupt XJP is *also* trying to save face and failing because our hand chosen insiders will tell us the truth checkmate!

(If it's not clear my point here is that the tabloid gossip logic around this story is genuinely incoherently stupid. Without concrete facts to act as basic validity checks people can spin anything to sound authentic if they just know how to knock on the correct erogenous zones of a person's brain stem. Maybe people who want to be well informed should exercise a bit more intellectual discipline and not be so eager to fall for the psyop).

Interesting. But what's really going on here?

 

[latenlazy]

Interesting. But what's really going on here?

Xi Jinping takes corruption very seriously because he sees cleaning up the party and reforming it into a high performing political institution as the most important work of his tenure, and there are still people in the system who were brought up during the era of ubiquitous corruption so once in a while a new graft ring is spotted, and this one just happened to go straight to the top of the CMC as the investigation kept tugging on the thread, unfortunately.

 

[Brainsuker]

Xi Jinping takes corruption very seriously because he sees cleaning up the party and reforming it into a high performing political institution as the most important work of his tenure, and there are still people in the system who were brought up during the era of ubiquitous corruption so once in a while a new graft ring is spotted, and this one just happened to go straight to the top of the CMC as the investigation kept tugging on the thread, unfortunately.

The order to arrest zhang youxia came from xi jinping himself or china anti corruption agency or police?

 

[Nautilus]

Xi Jinping takes corruption very seriously because he sees cleaning up the party and reforming it into a high performing political institution as the most important work of his tenure, and there are still people in the system who were brought up during the era of ubiquitous corruption so once in a while a new graft ring is spotted, and this one just happened to go straight to the top of the CMC as the investigation kept tugging on the thread, unfortunately.

I'm inclined to believe this interpretation since it makes more sense than a wholesale purge of military posts or some such explanation. Of course, it is a very bad thing that this took place, regardless of whether it is a good thing that they are being caught now. Some strange fellows on this forum seem to think it's normal or business as usual for the entire upper echelon of a nation's military to be culled.

 

[latenlazy]

I'm inclined to believe this interpretation since it makes more sense than a wholesale purge of military posts or some such explanation. Of course, it is a very bad thing that this took place, regardless of whether it is a good thing that they are being caught now. Some strange fellows on this forum seem to think it's normal or business as usual for the entire upper echelon of a nation's military to be culled.

It’s not great but in the context of the PLA’s current modernization process it’s actually not *terrible* either since so much of the new capabilities are things older leaders have never touched and seniority in military leadership is pretty overrated anyways so the damage is probably more contained than western pundits like to make it out to be.

 

[siegecrossbow]

I'm inclined to believe this interpretation since it makes more sense than a wholesale purge of military posts or some such explanation. Of course, it is a very bad thing that this took place, regardless of whether it is a good thing that they are being caught now. Some strange fellows on this forum seem to think it's normal or business as usual for the entire upper echelon of a nation's military to be culled.

Better than letting it fester.

 

[Some1Guy]

2 Chinese nationals suspected of spying from French Airbnb placed under investigation​

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Two Chinese nationals suspected of trying to intercept satellite communications from ‌a base in an Airbnb rental property in southwestern France have been placed ‍under formal investigation, the Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.

Police were first alerted last week when locals noticed that a roughly two-metre (6.6-foot) wide satellite dish being installed at the property in Gironde, which coincided with an internet outage, the office ⁠said.

The two Chinese nationals, and two other people, were arrested and brought before an investigating judge on

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and were formally placed under investigation on Thursday, the office said.

Two of them have been put in pre-trial detention, while the other two are under judicial supervision, the office added.

The case is the latest in a series of incidents involving allegations of Chinese spying ‍in Europe.

Tensions between Beijing and Western powers over espionage have risen in recent years as Western intelligence agencies increasingly sound the alarm on alleged Chinese state-backed hacking ‌activity.

 

[Some1Guy]

Greece arrests forces member for espionage with suspected links to China​

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Greek defence authorities have arrested a member ‍of the Greek defence forces accused of leaking “secret information” to “third parties”, the Greek National Defence General Staff (GEETHA) said ⁠on Thursday.

Two months ago, Greece’s intelligence service received a tip-off from a Western national security agency that “highly sensitive” information was leaked to China by ‍a member of the country’s military, sources close ‍to the investigation added.

The man, a member of the Greek Air Force in ‌the wider Athens region, was later closely monitored by ‍Greek authorities and he was arrested on suspicion that he intended to leak even more sensitive information to his operator abroad, ‌who ⁠is allegedly linked with China.

“The arrest took place within a military area, in cooperation and coordination with other state services,” GEETHA said in a press ‌release.

The suspect’s name was not disclosed but the sources said he confessed to the actions after his arrest.

There was no immediate response from China to the allegations.

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