Title: RAB Source Entry 1 – Balthazar

Reflecting Annotated Bibliography 

Introduction 

My research question is: What ways is China conducting espionage on the US and what can US do about this? This topic interests me because I have been seeing many events on the news that have to do with China and U.S relations. I see firsthand the plethora of young adults and adults using TikTok. On the news I see Chinese balloons being shot down and even spy’s being caught inside U.S companies along with various acts of espionage inside the U.S. I want to explore what is really going on. Are we amid a grey war? Is China’s reach that far? Are universities catching on to potential spies? How does the hunt for spy’s effect honest Chinese students and professors. Where does TikTok fall into the spying agenda? I already know that: Spy’s have been caught inside of U.S companies like GE, a Chinese ‘weather balloon’ was shot down, TikTok has been banned on government employees’ phones, tensions in Taiwan are escalating as Taiwan fears an invasion from China. I want to explore: What is really going on, how long has this been happening? Should average American citizens be worried? What is the extent of the Chinese governments spy campaign. Are we witnessing the second Cold War, and will this lead to a Hot war? How are grey wars fought and how are they won?   

Source Entry #1 

Part 1: MLA Citation 

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. “The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Mar. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/magazine/china-spying-intellectual-property.html. 

Part 2: Summary 

In the New York Time’s feature piece “The daring Ruse That exposed China’s campaign to Steal American Secrets” the author Yudhijit Bhattacharjee tells the story of Hua, an engineer at G.E Aviation who was invited to give a research talk at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics in eastern China. A seemingly innocent visit to his birth country uncovered the machine of China’s deeply rooted spying campaign which targeted intellectual property from the U.S Company G.E Aviation and many others. Bhattacharjee walks through the maze of events which lead the FBI arrest of a Chinese man by the name of Xu, who facilitated the meetings between himself and Hua. Bhattacharjee writes how the Chinese government – although they fully deny their participation – targets Chinese university students, faculty and employees of American companies. He explains that is no secret that China is spying noted by an assistant secretary from the U.S Department of Defense saying to during a meeting of American and Chinese representatives “Look, spying is OK, we spy, you spy everybody spies… What we object is your economic espionage.” What Bhatta sheds light on is China’s exploitation of Chinese people living in the United States, Chinese leadership stated, “Chinese belong to China, no matter what country they were born or living.” This all coincides with China’s “Made in China 2025” initiative, which seeks to make China the world’s top manufacture in multiple areas, from aerospace to artificial intelligence. A U.S national security official calls this initiate “a road map for theft.” Bhatta writes how these two men Hua, and Xu both Chinese, one working for the U.S and another for China are “chess pieces in a geopolitical game that they had little control over.” 

Part 3: Reflection 

Bhattacharjee provides a detailed look at the ways in which China conducts espionage within the United States. What I learned from the text is the extent China will go to, just to obtain intellectual property from the U.S. It is really a massive mechanism that drives on the purpose of syphoning as much information from the U.S as possible. What is fascinating is the way they looked to manipulate Hua, who had no intention of spying but simply got caught in their game. By using his pride in his birth country and his fascination with engineering they were able to manipulate him into almost giving up sensitive material, before the FBI intervened. This goes to show China’s lack of morality when conducting such operations – which tends to be the case with any intelligence organizing not just China’s M.S.S. As any Chinese person can be a target of these spying operations. 

Part 4: Rhetorical Analysis 

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee’s primary audience is Americans. Since he uses many quotes from U.S leadership and important figures in the U.S government. As well as these events happening within the U.S to a U.S company and one of the men involved being a citizen of the United States. The stories focus is on the geopolitics between the U.S and China. His writing style is much so a narrative of the events that unfolded, as well as informative to the details of Chinese espionage. The occasion of the piece comes after the Chinese balloon that was shot down over the United States. The article was published in the New York Times Magazine March 7, 2023. The purpose of this article was to tell the story of the events that uncovered details of how China conducts its economic espionage. The author appeals to logos, giving the reader facts and quotes from reputable people in the government, and not straying away from this approach of fact driven journalism.  

Part 5: Quotes 

“Perhaps most unsettling is the way China has sought to exploit the huge numbers of people of Chinese origin who have settled in the West. The Ministry of State Security, along with other Chinese government-backed organizations, spends considerable effort recruiting spies from this diaspora. Chinese students and faculty members at American universities are a major target, as are employees at American corporations. The Chinese leadership “made the declaration early on that all Chinese belong to China, no matter what country they were born or living” 

“No one begrudges a nation that generates the most innovative ideas and from them develops the best technology,” John Demers, former assistant attorney general for national security, said in a 2018 hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. “But we cannot tolerate a nation that steals our firepower and the fruits of our brainpower.” 

“Chinese agents and civilians have been implicated in the theft or illicit transfer of various military technologies, including those related to radar, fighter jets, submarines and weapons systems — China’s espionage expanded in the 1980s and beyond to also target commercial technologies as diverse as pesticides, rice seeds, robotic cars and wind turbines.” 

“An assistant secretary from the U.S. Department of Defense was explaining: Look, spying is OK — we spy, you spy, everybody spies, but it’s for political and military purposes,” Lewis recounted for me. “It’s for national security. What we object to is your economic espionage”