Some shady stuff is going on out on the West Coast, where The Stanford Review claims to have uncovered Chinese espionage on campus.
This investigation centers around a man posing as a Stanford student, and going by the alias Charles Chen. The Stanford Review calls him a CCP agent.
"Charles" reaches out to Stanford students - mostly women studying Chinese topics - and tries to gather intelligence from them. He's been posing as a Stanford student for years and alters his name on occasion to keep the school off his trail. "Charles," according to experts, likely works for the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).
Some more details on "Charles" and his interaction with the student, who is being called "Anna" but remains anonymous:
Charles inquired whether Anna spoke Mandarin, then grew increasingly persistent and personal. He sent videos of Americans who had gained fame in China, encouraged Anna to visit Beijing, and offered to cover her travel expenses. He would send screenshots of a bank account balance to prove he could buy the plane tickets. Alarmingly, he referenced details about her that Anna had never disclosed to him.
Just plain creepy stuff, and it's right out of the scammer's playbook.
You may remember that back in March, Stanford received a message from the Select Committee on the CCP on Capitol Hill detailing the security risks China posed to research at the university. "For years," The Stanford Review writes, "concerns about Chinese espionage have quietly persisted at Stanford."
Alright, here comes the juicy stuff:
After interviewing multiple anonymous Stanford faculty, students, and China experts, we can confirm that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford. In short, there are Chinese spies at Stanford.
The Review interviewed dozens of students, professors, and China experts, many of whom spoke under the condition of anonymity for their own safety.
One Chinese national at Stanford told the paper,
Many Chinese [nationals] have handlers; they [CCP] want to know everything that's going on at Stanford. This is a very normal thing. They just relay the information they have.
Oh, sorry, liberals, I forgot to put this on...
Yes, some Chinese nationals even have handlers on campus. Many Chinese are brought to overseas universities on the Chinese Scholarship Council, where they're handed money based on loyalty to the CCP. These students are made to supply information on their studies to the Chinese.
In an interview with The Stanford Review, Matthew Turpin gave us more details:
The Chinese government spends a lot of time collecting data on its overseas students; it has a pretty good understanding of who is doing what and if someone is working in an area of interest [frontier technology]. If students have access to things the government would like access to, it is relatively easy to reach out to an individual. They use carrots and sticks. If you turn over information, you may get a reward; if you don't, there is a punishment.
This most recent espionage being uncovered by The Stanford Review seems not to use a handler, but a phisherman.
According to Stanford experts on Chinese espionage,
[T]he Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has employed a 'crowdsourced approach' to gathering information at Stanford. Dubbed ‘non-traditional collection,' the Chinese Ministry for State Security (MSS) uses civilians unaffiliated with the intelligence community to acquire and report sensitive information. The aim of non-traditional collectors isn't necessarily to steal classified documents but rather to quietly extract the know-how behind American innovation.
This includes conclusions from Stanford research projects, methodologies, software, lab workflows, collaborative structures, and even communication channels. Stanford faculty speaking anonymously stated that this non-traditional collection of sensitive technology is extensively practiced at Stanford, particularly in AI and robotics.
They're stealing our ideas, folks. Plain and simple.
Wild times we're living in. The Stanford Review is out here exposing Chinese espionage on their own campus. Still, I bet the liberals will call this a conspiracy theory.
Now, let's look at one instance of Chinese espionage that is on the record.
Here is the only documented case of espionage on Stanford's campus:
The case of Stanford student Chen Song illustrates this very point: the CCP demands total compliance and directs individuals toward sensitive information. In July 2020, Song was indicted for lying about her affiliation with the Chinese military, formally known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA). In the charging documents, prosecutors accused Song of concealing her involvement in the PLA to obtain a J-1 visa to conduct research at Stanford.
DOJ documents allege that Song sent multiple updates to a Chinese government entity detailing the ‘nature, results, and value of her research work at Stanford.' Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division stated, ‘Time and again, the Chinese government prioritizes stealing U.S. research and taking advantage of our universities over obeying international norms.'
Stuff don't change, people. And until we do something about this on a national, even global level, this Chinese espionage is going to continue to happen.
Cheers to The Stanford Review for dropping this bombshell report.
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