Rumors that China’s top “spy catcher” has defected to the United States and is giving the Biden information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the leak of the coronavirus, if proven true, could “even lead to the fall of the Communist Party,” China expert Gordon Chang told Newsmax on Saturday.
“This is so explosive it could lead to a chain of events, which would sever relations between China and the United States,” Chang, the author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” told Newsmax’s “The Count,” adding Bejing appears to be in a panic over the reports.
The reports claim Chinese official Dong Jingwei, a vice-minister who took over responsibility for the country’s counter-intelligence three years ago, reportedly flew from Hong Kong to the United States in February with his daughter, reports South Asia news service ANI quoting SpyTalk, a newsletter covering U.S. intelligence, defense, and foreign affairs policy.
There has been no official comment from China, but according to SpyTalk, Dong reportedly gave the Biden administration information that caused it to change its stance on the Wuhan laboratory and to reconsider the potential the coronavirus that caused the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic came from the lab, rather than from nature.
If the rumors turn out to be true, Dong’s defection would be the highest level in the history of the People’s Republic of China.
Han Lianchao, a former Chinese ministry official who defected after the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, said the issue of Dong’s defection was brought up during the summit between China and the United States in Anchorage earlier this year.
Han, citing an unnamed source, tweeted China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, and Yang Jiechi, who is in charge of the Communist Party’s foreign affairs, demanded of Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Dong be returned, but he refused.
Experts, however, are denying the reports, and Chang pointed out the South China Morning Post is reporting Dong is in China and gave a talk Friday about catching foreign spies.
“But those reports from China do not appear to be credible,” Chang said. “The information from SpyTalk and from other sources is specific. It does sort of coincide with things that we do know, so I suspect that the report of the defection is true.”
If the reports are true, then Dong is talking about a lab leak and about Chinese military research into bioweapons, and that “would be a violation of China’s obligations under the biological weapons convention,” Chang added.
He also noted reports say Dong is speaking with the Defense Intelligence Agency, rather than other units because they have been “penetrated by Chinese Ministry of State” security agents, and he thinks that part is true.
“China has been overwhelming us with its spies and with its agents and others, so at this particular time, I’d have to say that that appears certainly to be a credible report that China has penetrated most units of the U. S government, indeed, state governments as well,” Chang said.
Chang also said he believes China, no matter how the pandemic began, “deliberately took steps to spread coronavirus beyond its borders by lying about its contagiousness and pressuring countries to accept arrivals from China, but that doesn’t emotionally resonate. What would resonate if this were proven to be a lab leak.”
Meanwhile, Dong “is or was” China’s top spy catcher, meaning he would be close to China’s ruler Xi Jinping and have access to “substantial information.”
“This is really important because what this does would it blow open the Chinese political system,” because Xi could be blamed for the defection and there could be a “new ruler overnight. This could cause the Communist Party to lose the stability that apparently people think it has.”
Story cited here.
