Defections Reveal Extent Of China's Espionage Operations
"China is the biggest [espionage] threat to the US today," David Szady, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) head of counterintelligence, told The Wall Street Journal on 10 August. It is a concern fuelled by a number of Chinese defectors in recent months who claim Beijing is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering operations overseas.

Chen Yonglin, the first secretary of the Chinese Consulate General in Sydney, Australia, defected on 4 June. Chen told Australian authorities that Beijing had been overseeing a network of more than 1,000 spies and informers in Australia. These claims were mirrored in Canada in July when Han Guansheng, a former Public Security Bureau official in Shenyang who defected to Canada in 2001, stated publicly that Beijing manages informants in Canada's Chinese community and gathers intelligence on key economic areas.

A second defector in Australia, believed to be a low-level intelligence official named Hao Fengjing, who came over to the Australians shortly after Chen, confirmed that China has more spies in Canada than in any other country. The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) will not comment on individual nations' intelligence activities, but CSIS officials told JIR: "Foreign countries who send students and visiting scientists often use them to obtain proprietary or classified information in Canada."

Europe is also said to be subject to China's scrutiny. The UK's Daily Telegraph reported in July that a Chinese intelligence defector in Belgium who had worked in European universities and companies for more than a decade, has given the Belgian security service (Sûreté de l'Etat) detailed information on hundreds of Chinese spies working at various levels of European industry.