The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Friday issued a warrant for a Chinese software engineer working for a U.S. technology company. The charges allege that he liaised with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence authorities on behalf of the company, canceled at least four June 4 Zoom video conferences at the direction of the Chinese government, and provided user information, including emails and IP addresses, to the Chinese Communist Party. The information was used by the Chinese side to intimidate and retaliate against participants and their families in China.
The charges allege that between January 2019 and November 2020, Jin, 39, a software engineer, terminated this year’s June 4 Tiananmen video conference in the United States and illegally transmitted the participants’ personal information to Chinese law enforcement authorities at the direction of the Chinese government’s intelligence and security services.
The U.S. Justice Department’s charges do not directly name the U.S. technology company involved. Reuters reports that the unnamed U.S. communications company is Zoom.
Wang Dan, a former founder of the June Fourth Movement leader Dialogue China, told RTHK that the FBI’s action once again proves the serious infiltration of the Chinese intelligence system into the United States. He hopes that the U.S. government will pay more attention to the infiltration from the Chinese Communist Party.
Wang Dan: The latest revelations confirm our long-standing suspicions about Zoom’s behavior, our commemorative activities on June 4, Zoom’s interference with Zoom’s systems, and although Zoom denies that they did it, this FBI investigation proves that it was indeed someone from their internal company staff who did it. And it is important to note that the documents released by the FBI show that the Chinese Communist Party is still monitoring people living in the United States, some of whom already have U.S. civil rights or green card rights. This is a serious violation of U.S. sovereignty, and the U.S. government should take this seriously and respond strongly.
The charges allege that Jin Xinjiang, who was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province and is currently based in mainland China, was the counterpart liaison between the companies involved and Chinese law enforcement and intelligence authorities, and that he and others interrupted at least four of the meetings in question. The Chinese Communist authorities used the information Jin provided to intimidate and retaliate against participants of the June 4 Tiananmen video conference and their family members living in China.
A statement from the U.S. Department of Justice said the companies involved in the case have maintained cooperation with the investigation. The FBI’s warrant calls for people to provide information about the wanted person to their nearest U.S. embassy or consulate.
Ms. Huang Ciping, Executive Director of the China Democracy Movement Overseas Joint Conference and the Wei Jingsheng Foundation, told the station that the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of overseas social communication platforms is long-standing, especially at a time when the epidemic is raging and meetings are relying on online platforms, and she found that not only Zoom but also many U.S. online communication platforms are showing signs of self-censorship in blocking anti-communist online meetings.
The fact is that these situations are not only in Zoom, but also in other companies, and Zoom has encountered such problems, and somehow it was cut off. I studied several software to open the contact meeting this time.
In June, we reported that the U.S.-based Humane China held a video commemoration of June 4 through Zoom, where groups such as the Tiananmen Mothers and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China spoke, but some participants’ accounts were later shut down, and Zoom later admitted that the Chinese government had asked them to stop the four Tiananmen commemorative events held on Zoom on June 4.
The founder and CEO of Zoom, Eric Yuan, is an immigrant from mainland China, and there have been recent concerns about Zoom’s security. The Citizen Lab, a web research organization affiliated with the University of Toronto, issued a report in April warning that Zoom was sending encrypted messages to the Chinese Communist Party, followed by Taiwan‘s request that the government and schools stop using Zoom, and the FBI’s earlier warning about Zoom’s privacy and security concerns.
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