A former Chinese official now based in the United States has come forward as a whistleblower about the Chinese system, revealing how China spies on its citizens at home and overseas, including in the US.
According to a CNN report, Ma Ruilin, who runs a Chinese restaurant in New York, says former cadres in China’s ruling Communist Party did not understand why he left his comfortable life as a government official.
Mao’s choice to publicly criticize the system he fled offers rare insider testimony as U.S. authorities step up efforts to counter what they call Beijing’s “transnational repression,” an alleged tactic used to intimidate and silence members of the Chinese diaspora abroad.
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However, the decision to leave Beijing was not an easy one for Mao, who had become increasingly disillusioned with Beijing politics, as he left everything behind, including his family. “The system has always been evil,” he said, adding: “If you don’t leave, you will continue to do evil there.”
During his time in the Chinese government, Ma recalled his role in designing and implementing programs that suppressed China’s religious minorities. He outlined how the scope and reach of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), the secret organ of the Communist Party where he was employed, had greatly expanded.
Minorities focused on China and the role of the mother
According to Ma, Beijing’s alleged tactic of tracking its expats in the US comes after it perfected the tactic at home. Ma, a Hui Muslim, a Chinese-speaking minority group, has been tasked with monitoring religious groups for most of his career, including Christians and Muslims.
He added that his department should have closed the mosques, removed the domes and expelled the imams. In addition, informants were hired and surveillance cameras were installed in a mosque in Gansu, after which officials gathered information that sent innocent people to either prison camps or prison.
The evolving role of the UFWD
Founded during the Mao Zedong era, the UFWD has evolved since then. Under Xi Jinping, China’s current leader, the department has evolved into a broad propaganda and influence network aimed at mobilizing support for Chinese Communist Party policies at home and abroad.
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Since the department’s inception, the UFWD has functioned as a political philosophy and branch of the ruling Communist Party, which Mao and Xi Jinping have described as one of China’s “magic weapons” to strengthen the party. The UFWD is strongly connected to the public and state security apparatus, forming “one chessboard, all together, one unit,” he said.
According to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, in recent years the Communist Party has expanded its strategy to include calls for stronger measures to implement the ministry’s work and to “increase the capacity” of its operations. Ma said the number of employees has “basically doubled” since 2019.
He added that even in the United States, the department has some activity, adding that he once saw a confidential document showing that some of the UFWD informants were arrested in the US.
According to Ma, the department sometimes recruits people with money or benefits, adding that there are many ways to recruit and corrupt someone.
UFWD links outside of China
The department is said to have ties to certain student organizations and community groups in the US, including so-called “hometown associations”. Beijing says such groups help members with routine matters such as obtaining driver’s licenses. However, according to Roman Rožhavský, assistant director of the counterintelligence and espionage division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they can also serve as a recruiting ground for individuals who want to participate in what the authorities describe as transnational repression.
Over 2,000 organizations linked to the United Front Work Department have been identified in four democratic countries, including the US, Canada, Britain and Germany.
China’s attempt to silence dissent on US soil: Experts
Citing experts, CNN said it was a campaign by the Chinese government to silence dissent on American soil, calling it aggressive and widespread.
Rozhavsky said there were “hundreds” of Chinese agents in the United States and described their presence as a serious violation of US sovereignty.
Meanwhile, Laura Harth of the human rights group Safeguard Defenders argued that the United Front Work Department had effectively turned into a tool, with coercive tactics the flip side of its wider influence efforts.
Those connected to the department often face accusations of harassment and intimidation of activists and critics, particularly those associated with what Beijing calls the “Five Poisons,” advocates of independence or expanded freedoms for Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as adherents of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong.
China rejects accusations of espionage on foreign soil
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According to the report, Beijing has consistently denied any allegations of espionage or illegal activity on foreign soil.
“On the one hand, America has repeatedly spread false information about so-called Chinese spies, and on the other hand, it has openly declared that it wants to launch large-scale espionage activities against China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said in January 2024.
