An official from a think tank claiming to be a senior Communist Party leader recently contacted a reporter for the U.S. media outlet Axios on LinkedIn, offering to pay for the reporter’s sources, provided they were related to the U.S. government’s views or policies on China.
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Axios’ China correspondent, reported Dec. 22 that a man named Aaron Shen, who identified himself as the assistant director for international liaison at the Center for Contemporary World Studies in China and said the center was an internal think tank of the Communist Party’s Central Liaison Department, was specifically seeking Allen-Ebrahimian’s sources and reporting to the Communist Party on the next U.S. administration’s views on China.
Screenshot of Shen Yue before he deleted his LinkedIn account. (Source: LinkedIn)
Economist Gady Epstein recently wrote that the job of the CCP’s Foreign Liaison Department is “to win support for China among foreign political parties. “As a (CCP) party body, it has considerable authority. It works closely with the Foreign Ministry and exchanges staff with it.”
Ellen Ebrahimian was one of two reporters who covered the hot-button story of Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese spy who targeted U.S. politicians such as California Rep. Eric Swalwell (D).
Alan Ebrahimian said, “This was a surprisingly clumsy attempt to get inside information about the U.S. government’s policy toward China, which suggests that it is increasingly difficult for Beijing to understand what is happening in Washington at a time of chilly U.S.-China relations and a global pandemic.”
Shen Yue, who sent a LinkedIn request to Alan Ebrahimian two weeks ago, said he was interested in “policy positions and considerations in terms of punishing and deterring certain entities and individuals in China by imposing sanctions, enforcing long-arm jurisdiction, putting pressure on allies, etc.”
After requesting a switch to the encrypted messaging application Signal (instead of LinkedIn), Shen Yue added: “If the information contributed truly reflects the reality of the situation and serves our needs well, it will undoubtedly be paid generously.”
Screenshot of a conversation between Alan Ebrahimian and Shen Yue on LinkedIn. (Source: LinkedIn)
Before asking for specific sources, Shen Yue asked Alan Ebrahimian how he gathered “first-hand information” during the Wuhan virus pandemic. He added that he was “baffled by the lack of access and resources to gather the in-depth first-hand information we needed to conduct our research and consulting work. Shen Yue added that the think tank, which is the foreign affairs department of the CCP’s Central Liaison Department, places a high priority on “authoritative” “intelligence sources” that “may reflect the real situation and trends in U.S.-China relations “.
After Shen Yue offered to pay her if she provided reports from her sources, Ellen Ebrahimian said she told him she was about to meet with a “former intelligence director” named “Krustofsky ” (an important-sounding but nonexistent position). This name also does not exist in reality, but is the name of a character in the cartoon “The Simpsons”.
But Shen Yue didn’t seem to see the crack. Before this reporter made a formal media inquiry, Shen Yue’s final message to Alan Ebrahimian was, “How did your meeting with Krustofsky go? Any interesting news?”
Alan Ebrahimian said, “Of course, I never sent any names of real people or any reports to Shen Yue, nor did I ever communicate with him on Signal, nor did I ever accept any form of payment from him.”
The Center for Contemporary World Studies in China never responded to Alan Ebrahimian’s request for comment sent via email. Shen Yue deleted his LinkedIn account after Alan Ebrahimian sent formal media requests and questions about his identity and intentions to his email address, and to his LinkedIn inbox.
Alan Ebrahimian then searched the think tank’s website for “Aaron Shen” and “Shen Yue” with no results. Their website also does not appear to list the names of their employees exhaustively.
According to Alan Ebrahimian, “This appears to be some sort of effort by the CCP to gather inside information about the U.S. policy process toward China, and the person behind the LinkedIn account may have been working for a Chinese intelligence agency while simply using the think tank of the CCP’s Central Foreign Liaison Department as a cover.”
Nadège Rolland, a senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research and author of a recently published report on how Chinese think tanks act as conduits of authoritarian influence, said the attempt was “surprising” and even “shameless.
This may indicate that it is difficult for the Chinese party-state to know what is going on behind the scenes in Washington, due to the deterioration of U.S.-China relations and travel restrictions during the pandemic, Rowland said.
Rowland said, “On the face of it, the party state does appear to be professional in what they do. But in reality, that may not be the case.”
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