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-Land of the Free
Chinese Defector's Identity Confirmed, Was Top Counterintelligence Official
2021-06-18
[Red State] We now know the name of the Chinese defector who has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a few months and what his position within the Chinese military and government was, among other details.

Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at Spy Talk reported on the "rumor," and gave the name and background of the rumored defector:

Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei (董经纬) defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.

Dong is, or was, a longtime official in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), also known as the Guoanbu. His publicly available background indicates that he was responsible for the Ministry’s counterintelligence efforts in China, i.e., spy-catching, since being promoted to vice minister in April 2018. If the stories are true, Dong would be the highest-level defector in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

RedState’s sources confirmed that the defector is, in fact, Dong, that he was in charge of counterintelligence efforts in China, and that he flew to the United States in mid-February, allegedly to visit his daughter at a university in California. When Dong landed in California he contacted DIA officials and told them about his plans to defect and the information he’d brought with him. Dong then "hid in plain sight" for about two weeks before disappearing into DIA custody.

RedState’s sources say that Chinese officials did demand that the United States return Dong, but Blinken didn’t exactly refuse; at that time Blinken wasn’t aware that Dong was with the US government, the sources say, and told China that the US didn’t have Dong.

It’s only in the last three to four weeks that anyone outside DIA knew about the defector, according to RedState’s sources. Prior to that time, DIA was vetting the information provided and confronting Langley officials with what they’d learned without divulging the source.

Experts quoted in the Spy Talk piece essentially say that the defection is just a rumor and that rumors happen all the time, but that if it’s true it’s a big deal but "not game-changing." Based on conversations with sources familiar with the information Dong has already provided and its quantity and reliability, that’s simply not the case. Not only does Dong have detailed information about China’s special weapons systems, the Chinese military’s operation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and the Chinese government’s assets and sources within the United States; Dong has extremely embarrassing and damaging information about our intelligence community and government officials in the "terabytes of data" he’s provided to the DIA.
Which the Biden Administration will promptly bury.
Related:
Chinese defector: 2021-06-14 Defector Provides Evidence That the Chinese Military Orchestrated the Creation of COVID-19 and Lab Leak
Chinese defector: 2016-09-07 Clinton Turned Away High-Level Chinese Defector to Assist Beijing Leaders
Chinese defector: 2006-10-09 Pentagon analyst gets light jail term
Posted by:Grinesing Unating7534

#10  Who knows what internal CCP politics may have prompted his defection?

Maybe this: Corruption is rife in China’s state-directed economy, and it may have washed up on Dong. “He worked closely with Zhang Yue, who's now serving 15 years imprisonment for corruption," Dr. Han said. “Zhang was a confidant of Ma Jian, former MSS executive vice minister, who is also in prison for corruption.”
Posted by: Grinesing Unating7534   2021-06-18 18:45  

#9  What is telling for me is that he chose the DIA, and they insulated him from CIA, FBI, State, DoJ DHS and the rest of the alphabet soup agencies. If he is authentic, it would make sense if those agencies are deeply penetrated/compromised, and he wanted to get away from immediate visibility. It also supports my own sense that the DIA animus that goes back to Flynn and Obama, and the massive silencing job they did on him was because he knew things at DIA that were very very damaging. If he is a false flag deep disinformation agent, wouldn't he be more interested in the deeper effects that would have across the wider spectrum of the 17 intel agencies instead of the narrow focus of the DIA? It is a wilderness of mirrors and the risk of an James Jesus Angleton massacre is possible, but while this is highly visible now, it also may be a gift to reveal how deep the rot has gone. Who knows what internal CCP politics may have prompted his defection?
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2021-06-18 16:08  

#8  #5 But how do you make deputy minister of security to throw away his life to implement such a program of deception, Dron?
I think, we have here a looser in internal power struggle who had to flee for his life, and trying to buy sanctuary - doesn't mean his info is 100% reliable.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2021-06-18 14:44  

#7  I'm glad I'm not the only one getting a strange feeling.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2021-06-18 14:03  

#6  ^ That's why I didn't even bother to read it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2021-06-18 13:59  

#5  Suspect. A man in 'spy catching' knows all about defectors and double and triple sided tale tattlers and plants and traps. If China wanted to plant a disinformation source it'd be him. And he would have to come with verifiable data, mostly on his American counterparts, which could be confirmed with only a slight digging. His China info will remain unverifiable and might even contain overestimation of Chinese 'special weapons systems'.

While Biden's administration plays 'hide the Dong' with him, he will help you dismantle your own networks in east Asia, forcing you to start from scratch. But to the Chinese players you can't do anything, not for biowarfare, not for spying, nothing.

Assuming of course any of this is true.

Posted by: Dron66046   2021-06-18 12:43  

#4  Buried the lede:

In addition, Dong has provided DIA with the following information:

Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2

Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world

Financial records detailing which exact organizations and governments funded the research on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare research

Plus:

Names of US citizens who provide intel to China

Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who’ve received money from the Chinese government


Posted by: Herman Prince of the Welsh1505   2021-06-18 12:31  

#3  How can we know if this is true, or a disinformation program?
Why do we know about it at all?
Posted by: Glenmore   2021-06-18 11:18  

#2  Would make a great Jeff Abbott or David Morrell story. How does one intelligence agency protect a defector from the other agencies?
Posted by: M. Murcek   2021-06-18 10:48  

#1  Has a top Chinese official defected to the US with Wuhan lab secrets? Rumors swirl vice minister of State Security fled Beijing in February with information that sparked Biden u-turn on COVID origins

Posted by: Skidmark   2021-06-18 09:40  

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