China's Communist Party recently authorized an aggressive program of stealing U.S. science and technology information by recruiting Americans in the tech sector with access to trade secrets, according to an internal Party directive.
The directive outlines a secret program authorized by the general office of the Communist Party of China (CCP) Central Committee of stepped up technology collection beginning in late 2016 and carried out by an intelligence unit called the United Front Work Department.
The document is an approval order from the Central Committee for a "working plan on strengthening the intensity of United Front Work in the area of science and technology of the United States in 2017."
"The united front work targeted on the areas of science and technology of the United States is an important measure of our party to deeply divide western hostile forces, to maintain social stability, to ensure national security, to comprehensively advance the rapid development of our own science and technology and economy, to accelerate the construction of national defense modernization, and to consolidate the overseas united front," the document states.
United front work is a communist euphemism for strategic alliances among groups and affiliates that dates to the Soviet Union under Lenin.
Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping greatly increased the use of united front work as a key tool in China's global influence operations.
Xi stated in a September 2014 speech that united front work is among the Party's "magic weapons" in low-level global warfare against enemies, including the United States.
A copy of the three-page
was obtained by the
Washington Free Beacon from a person with ties to the Chinese intelligence and security communities. An English translation can be found
.
The document is dated Dec. 13, 2016, and carries the red hammer and sickle seal of the Party's general office, the administrative unit located within the leadership compound in Beijing known as Zhongnanhai.
Copies were sent to the National People's Congress, State Council—two Chinese government arms—and Central Military Commission, the Party organ that controls the military.
The authenticity of the document could not be independently verified. A CIA spokesman declined to comment. A Chinese Embassy spokesman did not return emails seeking comment.
The classified document reveals that China's ruling Communist Party regards the United States as a "hostile" power that is blocking China's development by denying access to cutting edge American technology.
China's systematic theft of American technology is also being carried out with the aim of subverting U.S. and western nations, according to the document.
"This is proof China is aggressively subverting America and stealing technology through espionage," said a person familiar with the plan.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Chinese intelligence gathering is a major threat facing the United States.
"In our experience, there is no nation that targets America's assets more aggressively than the Chinese government," Wray told NBC News.
"And the Chinese government works hand in hand with Chinese companies, among others, to do everything they can through all sorts of means to try and steal our trade secrets, our economic assets," he added.
Targets of Chinese spying range from special corn seeds in Iowa to control systems for wind turbines in Massachusetts, Wray said.
The threat posed by aggressive Chinese theft of trade and economic information is having "a real impact" on American jobs, businesses, and consumers, he said.
Disclosure of the internal Chinese report bolsters the findings of a March 22 report by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) office that warns China is stealing massive amounts of American technology.
The USTR report states that China has adopted a plan for obtaining foreign high technology between 2006 and 2020, and then "re-innovating" the know-how for Chinese use.
Chinese companies are targeting and acquiring foreign technology using technology transfers from foreign companies doing business in China and through the collection of market intelligence by state entities that will benefit Chinese companies.
The Trump administration released the USTR report in announcing plans to impose between $50 billion and $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese products in response to unfair trade practices.
China's illicit information and technology theft costs Americans $225 billion to $600 billion annually in lost information, the USTR report said.
The covert technology collection program is intended to bolster China's large-scale conventional and nuclear military buildup and expand support for pro-communist forces outside China.
The Communist Party report states that the United States remains the world's technology leader and has blocked China from gaining access to advanced American know-how.
"Though the United States has been the bellwether of high and new science and technology of today's world, for a long time it has consistently resisted and been hostile toward our country that has successfully practiced the socialist system with Chinese characteristics out of consideration for maintaining its own national interests and ideology," the report says.
"Even in today's fair competition in the world, [the U.S.] still stubbornly imposes a blockage on high and new and core science and technology, control over our recruitment of key talent, and an embargo of related equipment against our country, having an extremely negative impact on our country in the areas such as export trade and construction of military modernization, etc."
The Central Committee's general office is the powerful organ in charge of administrative affairs and drafts and circulates all directives for activities.
"Your department must take the lead in further strengthening reasonable investment of various resources, effectively join forces with diplomatic, state security, and military intelligence agencies to deeply explore and develop personal relationships and connections related to the areas of high and new and core science and technology of the United States," the document states.
The sectors targeted in the covert program include traditional defense and military industry, nuclear energy and power, aerospace and aviation and microelectronics, and biological and medical science.
However, the new plan also is targeting cutting edge technologies including quantum computing and information science and technology.
"We should particularly target those key persons who have a relationship of commercial interests with our country (including Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions) and overseas institutions of large corporations of our country and directly participate the research and development in the related areas of science and technology, or have special and close relationships with them," the report said.
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Maybe we just had strict parents hahaha
