The New York University Chinese Culture Club (NYUCCC), under the control of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Consulate, initiated a petition on June 8, 2007 on its website against the International Chinese Dance Competition.
Since then, the issue of Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) becoming umbrella organizations of the CCP spies and the heads of CSSAs as spies themselves were put on the table. Dozens of former CSSA chairs and main contact persons openly testified that the CCP Embassies and Consulates manipulated and used CSSAs in various universities to conduct “illegal activities” beyond the scope of their normal diplomatic businesses.
Among them, the Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CUCSSA) is the core of the CCP CSSA spy organization. Two of the three CUCSSA advisors are Chinese Consulate officials. The heads of the CUCSSA not only directly follow orders from the Chinese Consulate, but also get fixed incomes from the Consulate, have regular meetings at the Consulate, and implement the CCP’s policies outside of China. These people act as agents for the CCP without registering with the U.S. Government, hence have already violated U.S. law.
At the same time, former Chinese diplomat in Australia Chen Yonglin took a week-long lecture tour in Canada early June. He openly named CSSAs as overseas groups controlled by the CCP that act as agents for the CCP outside China.
The CCP’s spy activities in U.S. have attracted tight attention from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In mid June, the FBI announced that it would send officers to top U.S. universities to provide training on how to watch out for suspicious activities, which caused stirs on campuses. In early July, FBI published Chinese advertisements on three Chinese newspapers in San Francisco for a week, encouraging American Chinese to report on CCP spies. The FBI’s monitor on the CCP’s favorites moves towards the open.
CSSA is An Extended Organization of the Chinese Consulate
According to former chair of the University of Arizona CSSA Ma Youzhi, before the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, almost all overseas CSSAs were like an extended organization of the Chinese Embassies and Consulates. The Chinese Consulate monitored and managed Chinese students and visiting scholars abroad through CSSA.
At the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, almost all CSSAs in U.S. condemned the CCP’s slaughter. Many CSSAs freed themselves from the CCP’s control then and formed the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars. However, the CCP later bought over some people who were willing to become agents for the CCP, or directly sent spies to take leading roles in CSSA. Many CSSAs were again controlled by the CCP and have become an extended spy organization for the CCP.
Two of Three Advisors for CUCSSA Come From the Chinese Consulate
Two of the three advisors for the CUCSSA come from the CCP’s General Consulate in New York. They are the Counselor for Education Fanglin Ai and Consul Da Yao, who is in charge of New York City and Long Island.
On June 8, 2007, the NYUCCC initiated a petition on its website against the International Chinese Dance Competition. On June 17, CUCSSA published on its own website an open letter supporting NYUCCC, and published nine articles attacking and slandering Falun Gong on the same day. All of these articles attached the URL of the Chinese Embassy in the United States.
CUCSSA Is a Key Base for the CCP spy organization
A source disclosed to The Epoch Times that the CUCSSA has always been a focal point for the CCP’s force development overseas. It is the CCP’s most competent tool in conducting “illegal activities” beyond the normal consulate business scope. The CUCSSA takes on important political tasks, including monitoring famous human rights activist Wei Jingsheng when he was studying at the Columbia University. Now it is focusing on attacking and slandering Falun Gong.
Tang Baiqiao, former student leader of the Tiananmen Democratic Student Movement in 1989 and the chairman of the China Peace and Democracy Alliance, witnessed in person how the Chinese Consulate manipulated CSSA between 2001 and 2003 when he was studying at the Columbia University.
Tang said that the CUCSSA has been an important base inspected and controlled by the CCP. The CCP treated it as a spy center. One reason was that Columbia University is a famous school in New York, which is the USA’s economic center with a lot of foreign students. Another reason is that many famous Chinese people and children of CCP’s high-ranking officials graduated from Columbia University. Since 1989 many dissenters went there for study or as visiting scholars.
According to insiders, the chairman and deputy chairman of CUCSSA are required to report to the Consulate separately. The Consulate will check these two reports and verify the accuracy of the reports to test their loyalty to the CCP. If these people go back to China after graduation, they are able to be promoted quickly through the political capitals gained overseas. If they stay overseas, they will be assigned special missions and act as CCP’s spies by infiltrating the western society.
MSS (Ministry of State Security of China) Planted Many of Spies at Columbia University
Commentator Li Tianxiao, Ph.D in politics, studied from 1986 to 1994 at Columbia University. He said that the Chinese Consulate in New York controlled and inspected Columbia University very tightly and often sent people to do investigations or attend conferences in order to keep track of Chinese students.
He said, “I have heard that the MSS had planted spies at Columbia University and brought dictatorial trickery from mainland China to control and keep watch over overseas students.”
Attacks on Falun Gong, Acting as Pawns for the CCP
On April 20, 2007, David Matas, a member of the Canadian Independent Investigation Team, and famous international human rights lawyer, and Dr Yang Jingduan and Dr. Li Xiangchun, both Falun Gong practitioners, attended conferences held at Princeton and Colombia Universities separately to expose the CCP’s crime of organ harvesting.
The CCP sent CUCSSA to stir up trouble at the conference. They continuously and purposefully interrupted speakers and even shouted out comments during the meeting. Their strange behavior and irrationality made Western professors and students speechless. Later, CUCSSA announced on its website, “CUCSSA presented strong coherence and combative strength through this event.” They made no attempt to hide its identify as pawns for the CCP.
Li also pointed out that the main political goal for the CCP in recent years was to persecute Falun Gong. CUSSSA has been sparing no efforts in attacking Falun Gong and has never concealed its secrets. It is very clear who is the one behind the scene. Li said that CSSA overseas have been generally controlled by the CCP. However, it is rare to see CUCSSA’s open and public slandering of Falun Gong. Many associations carried out the commands from the CCP secretly and tried to conceal themselves by using disguises.
On July 17, fourteen articles still were kept in the news column of its website, five of them attacking Falun Gong. The articles were filled with harsh words of the CCP propaganda, such us “Anyone who violates the strong force anywhere should be wiped out!”
Important Meetings Periodically Held In Chinese Consulate
According to Tang Boqiao, the CUCSSA periodically holds meetings at the Chinese Consulate, including important student association meetings. Large student association events enjoyed complete funding from the Chinese consulate, and consulate officials give lectures at every meeting. One large scale annual ball to celebrate the New Year is held in the student center auditorium and the consulate pays $15000 to rent the space for the event.
One CUCSSA bulletin from June 6, 2007 reads, “CUCSSA student officials recently attended a colloquia held by the general consulate. The conference included a greeting leaders from the Chinese General Consulate conveying warm regards from the homeland and its people to oversea students in the Great New York Area.”
The analyst noted that the message in the greeting was clear: the Chinese Consulate controls student associations in the Great New York Area.
Payment to the CUCSSA Chairman
According to some reports, eight years ago, the Chinese Consulate in New York deposited $3000 and $1500 respectively into the special credit cards for the chairman and deputy chairman of CUCSSA as a reward every month, although the credit card isn’t registered under the president’s name.
Tang expressed that when he was attending Columbia, the CUCSSA president would not only have meals periodically paid for by consulate officials, but would also see a $1500 allowance from the consulate every month. This later became known to other students. “I think the amount of the allowance has become even higher,” said Tang.
In a lecture he gave in Canada this June, former CCP diplomat Chen Yonglin discussed the techniques CCP embassies employed to control overseas students. One of the strategies is the scholarship programs by the CCP Ministry of Education to overseas students who work actively for the Chinese consulate.
Assisting the CCP with Buying-off of “China Experts”
The CCSA serves another important political function: influencing research experts in the field of Chinese studies who work in American universities.
According to Tang, after the June 4 incident in 1989, these “China Experts” have basically become the critics of the current CCP regime, so the CCP invested tremendous effort to sway them. These “experts” are often professors in American universities, so the Chinese regime uses student associations to influence them. Tang added that he had heard of, and personally encountered, many incidents of the CSSA chairman sharing meals together with these China experts and Chinese consulate staff.
Tang stressed that such tactics yield a great benefit to the CCP, but they are also great hindrance to and even directly harm the Chinese people. For a majority of the Chinese people who want the world to know about the CCP’s unlawful deeds their voice is essentially silenced, as these student associations ensure that the government is able to maintain its cover-up.
USD $30-$70 for Welcoming Chinese Leaders
In addition, the CSSA at every university also works to lure students with money to attend welcome gatherings when a Chinese leader comes to visit.
Tang recalled that one year, with Jiang Zhemin’s visit to the U.S., CUCSSA sent an e-mail to students, informing them that anyone attending the welcome gathering would be paid $30, including spouses and children, who were also entitled to the full amount. A family of three would receive a total of $90 for being present.
The email was mocked by 99 percent of the recipients, as many students said it was not worth selling one’s face for so little money. Others jokingly asked if they could get more money. The whole thing was seen as a laughing stock.
Not long after, when another Chinese dignitary came to visit, the Columbia University CSSA raised their offer to $70 a head.
Xu Kai—CUCSSA Chairman and Fanatical CCP Supporter
In June of this year, in his keynote address of the unveiling ceremony of the Victims of Communism Memorial , U.S. President Bush noted that communism and terrorism are no different, adding that both are a crime against humanity. Xu Kai, the current Columbia University CSSA president, was formerly a leader-class student in Qinghua University in Beijing. When U.S. President Bush delivered his speech at Qinghua University on February 22, 2002, Xu was one of the roughly 300 students chosen by the university to attend, representing the great trust that the Chinese regime places in this individual.
Whether out in public or on his own blog, Xu makes no effort to hide his support for the current Chinese regime and his fanaticism for communism; he has continued to make his stance known since he arrived in the U.S. for his studies. It is perhaps no surprise that Xu was hand picked by the Chinese consulate to be the chairman for Columbia’s CSSA.
Xu has decorated his blog with several photos of himself with Chinese consulate staff, as well as photos where he’s engaged in consulate organized activities.
According to an overseas Chinese student attending Columbia, Xu seemed to develop strong ties to the Chinese consulate shortly after his arrival. Many found this quite unusual, because such a relationship often takes time to develop; but not for Xu Kai.
FBI Counter-Espionage Agents Enter American Universities
In mid June 2007, in order to prevent foreign spies and hidden terrorists from conducting espionage operations, the FBI announced that they would send agents to all the major American universities. FBI officials openly admitted that America’s biggest espionage threat comes from China
FBI special agents have reportedly contacted various universities, teaching school staff and students about potential foreign spies and terrorists. The bureau also guided these individuals on how to identify foreign special agents and trained them in ways to protect themselves. The head of Boston’s FBI bureau claimed that such activities would certainly spread to all the major U.S. universities. He also pointed out that as open communities, university campuses become very easy targets for spies to infiltrate. The FBI urges these universities to stay on high alert for these types of activities. The news regarding the FBI’s counter-espionage efforts has encouraged a lot of discussion among Chinese students and scholars. CSSA leaders are said to be quite concerned.
According to a report by the Xinhua News Agency, the official news outlet of the Chinese communist regime, a CSSA leader in the U.S.’s southwest region said, “Scholars and students involved in research for high-tech or engineering fields will have to watch their actions, so as to avoid being caught by the FBI and treated as spies.”
The Xinhua report also stated that at University of Southern California, about 10 Chinese graduate students attending a Ph.D. program in advanced neurology have been closely monitored for the past two years. In the past two years, without exception, as soon as an individual from this group returned to China for a visit, they met with an FBI background investigation. After a young associate professor attended a conference in China, he became the subject of a year and half FBI investigation upon filing his visa application to return to the States.
FBI’s Monitoring of CCP Favorites Going Public
From July 2 to 8, the FBI put ads in three Chinese San Francisco papers: China Press, Singdao Daily and World Daily. The ads sought assistance from members of the Chinese community to provide any information related to actions that could prove to be potentially dangerous to U.S. national security; the ads especially welcomed information regarding China’s National Security Bureau.
“After the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism dissolved, the FBI honed in on the CCP’s U.S. espionage operation; this took place long ago,” said Li Tianxiao. “In the high-tech field, in big companies, especially in universities, such monitoring definitely exists. Specifically, just before the 1989 pro-democracy movement, many CCP members began to be monitored and it has continued ever since. They have no idea their cases have been thoroughly examined by the FBI.”
Li pointed out that the once covert FBI monitoring of CCP favorites is becoming more apparent.
