China to Its People: Spies Are Everywhere, Help Us Catch Them

Beijing sees forces bent on weakening it everywhere: embedded in multinational companies, infiltrating social media, circling naïve students. And it wants its people to see them, too. Chinese universities require faculty to take courses on protecting state secrets, even in departments like veterinary medicine. A kindergarten in the eastern city of Tianjin organized a meeting to teach staffers how to “understand and use” China’s anti-espionage law. China’s Ministry of State Security, a usually covert department that oversees the secret police and intelligence services, has even opened its first social media…

Labour plans new taskforce to target contractors linked to hostile nations

Contractors linked to hostile foreign powers such as China will be targeted by a new security taskforce if Labour wins the next general election. In a joint initiative from the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the new body will aim to anticipate risks to Britain’s national security. It comes just days after the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, said China represents the “largest state-based threat” to Britain’s economic security. The government intervened in eight attempted takeovers of UK firms by Chinese buyers last year…

Keir Starmer says Labour will prioritise growth which will mean ‘better jobs, public services, holidays and more cash’ – as it happened

From 4h ago Starmer tells BCC why he is prioritising GDP, saying growth is ‘better jobs, public services, holidays, meals out, more cash’ Keir Starmer is addressing the BCC conference now. He starts by talking about growth, and explaining why one of his “missions” for Labour is for the UK to have the highest sustained growth in the G7 in the next parliament. He says: I know what a lot of people in Westminster say about growth. They say it’s an abstract concept, doesn’t resonate, doesn’t connect with peoples’ lives,…

F.B.I. Arrests Two on Charges Tied to Chinese Police Outpost in NYC

For years, thousands of New Yorkers and tourists have walked past an unassuming office building in Lower Manhattan. On Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges accusing two men of helping run an unauthorized Chinese police outpost there, one of more than 100 around the globe used to intimidate and control China’s citizens abroad, and to stamp out criticism of the ruling Communist Party. The two men were arrested on Monday and charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government, and with obstructing justice. They are said to…

Chinese cameras leave British police vulnerable to spying, says watchdog

British police are leaving themselves open to spying by Beijing because of their reliance on Chinese-made cameras, according to a report from the government’s independent watchdog on surveillance. Most forces across England and Wales use camera equipment that is either made in China or contains important Chinese components, the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner has warned. Fraser Sampson, the publicly appointed commissioner, warned that such equipment poses both security and ethical concerns, at a time when tensions with Beijing are already high. The report comes a day after the prime…

Can a Police Officer Accused of Spying for China Ever Clear His Name?

Now that he is no longer accused of being a secret agent for China, Baimadajie Angwang can start asking hard questions. The hardest: How could he — a naturalized U.S. citizen, New York City police officer and Marine Corps veteran — have been jailed for months over what he says were misunderstood phone calls and classified evidence that not even his lawyer could see in full? When federal authorities arrested Officer Angwang in September 2020, they accused him of reporting on other Tibetans to a handler at the Chinese consulate…

U.S. Drops Case Against Police Officer It Had Called an ‘Insider Threat’

In September 2020, when federal authorities charged Baimadajie Angwang, a Marine Corps veteran and New York Police Department officer, with acting as an illegal agent of China, the head of New York’s F.B.I. office called him “the definition of an insider threat.” The government has quietly changed its mind. On Thursday, in a brief and subdued hearing in a Brooklyn courtroom, a federal judge granted prosecutors’ request to dismiss the charges against Officer Angwang. The swift unraveling of the case — which had been hailed as a signature example of…

US Asks to Drop Case Accusing NYPD Officer of Spying for China

He came to the United States at 17 on a cultural exchange visa and later applied for, and was granted, political asylum, court filings show. He joined the Marines in 2009, spent seven months in Afghanistan, became a U.S. citizen in 2010, was honorably discharged in 2014 and then enlisted in the Army reserves, court records show. In 2016, Officer Angwang joined the Police Department, where he was a patrol officer and, at the time of his arrest in September 2020, a community affairs officer with the 111th Precinct in…

How China’s Police Used Phones and Faces to Track Protesters

On Sunday, when Mr. Zhang went to protest China’s strict Covid policies in Beijing, he thought he came prepared to go undetected. He wore a balaclava and goggles to cover his face. When it seemed that plainclothes police officers were following him, he ducked into the bushes and changed into a new jacket. He lost his tail. That night, when Mr. Zhang, who is in his 20s, returned home without being arrested, he thought he was in the clear. But the police called the next day. They knew he had…

Migrant Workers Fuel Protests Over China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Restrictions

The Haizhu District of Guangzhou, where the clashes took place, is a center of garment production, and tens of thousands of migrant workers from rural China make a living in small factories, shops and diners that cram its streets. But there and across much of China, Covid restrictions on work and travel have added to a wider economic slowdown and pushed many small businesses into closure or bankruptcy, leaving migrant workers struggling to make a living. “People don’t have anywhere to vent their frustration,” said a local resident surnamed Hu,…