Beijing devoted to weakening 'enemy' U.S., defector says

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China's communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances, said a former Chinese diplomat.

Chen Yonglin, until recently a senior political officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, said in an interview that China also is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering activities in the United States that, in the past, netted large amounts of confidential U.S. government documents from agents.

"The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival," Mr. Chen told The Washington Times in a telephone interview from Australia, where he is in hiding after breaking with Beijing in May.

All Chinese government officials are ordered to gather information about the United States, "no matter how trivial," he said. "The United States occupies a unique place in China's diplomacy," Mr. Chen said.

A pro-democracy activist who took part in the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Mr. Chen, 37, spent 10 years as a Foreign Ministry official. He said he defected and sought political asylum in Australia to highlight repression of the Chinese people by their government and the ruling Communist Party, as well as the repression of dissidents such as democracy activists and the Falun Gong spiritual group.

Most Chinese government activity in the United States involves information-gathering carried out by military-related intelligence officers or civilians linked to the Ministry of State Security, Mr. Chen said.

"I know that China once got a heavy load of confidential documents from the United States and sent it back to China through the Cosco ship," Mr. Chen said, referring to the state-owned China Ocean Shipping Co.

The information was "very useful" to China's military and related to "aircraft technology," he said.

The Chinese also send political police abroad to monitor overseas Chinese and others in North America who Beijing considers opponents of the regime, he said.

China's government has targeted Australia as part of its "money diplomacy" and is working hard to persuade Australia not to send troops to help the United States in any conflict over the Republic of China (Taiwan), Mr. Chen said.