Chinese Diplomats Deported to US Espionage. Two employees of the Chinese Embassy in the United States were secretly expelled from the country in September for espionage.
The New York Times writes that based on six people with knowledge of the matter. It is the first time in thirty years that Chinese diplomats have been deported for espionage.
The two Chinese men and their wives drove past the checkpoint of a military base in the state of Virginia in September. They did not have the correct documents for this and were asked to turn around.
They didn’t do that and even when they were being chased by military vehicles they didn’t stop. Only when two fire trucks blocked the road did the diplomats turn around.
According to the Chinese embassy in the US, the two employees were lost. The sources of The New York Times say that the US intelligence services assume it was a test.
If the foursome could have just kept on driving, an employee of the Chinese intelligence service would have gone to the base to collect information.
On October 16, the US announced that Chinese diplomats should not go to government buildings or meet politicians without permission. It was officially a retaliation measure for a similar Chinese rule introduced years ago, but it seems to have more to do with the September incident.
The incident has confirmed the US government’s suspicions that China is focusing more on espionage in the US, government sources say in the newspaper.