Name: A Chinese Communist Party think tank staffer offered to pay for sources
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A Chinese Communist Party think tank staffer offered to pay for sources

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A screenshot of Aaron Shen's LinkedIn account before he deleted it. Image source: LinkedInA person on LinkedIn claiming to work for a think tank run by a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party department recently offered financial compensation for the names of my sources and for reports about the incoming Biden's administration's views on China.Why it matters: It was a surprisingly clumsy attempt to gain insider information about the U.S. government's China policy, suggesting that amid a chill in U.S.-China relations and a global pandemic, it's gotten harder for people in Beijing to know what's happening in Washington.Details: A couple of weeks ago, someone named Aaron Shen (沈岳 in Chinese) sent me a request to connect on LinkedIn. I accepted after I saw he claimed to be the assistant director of international liaison at the China Center for Contemporary World Studies — the in-house think tank of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee (IDCPC).Shen and I started chatting. We had both been students at Peking University in 2008. I asked him where he was from (Hubei Province). I told him I was from Texas ("Oh right! Cowboy is a very famous cultural symbol of Texas," he replied, referring to the hat-wearing cow-wrangler, not the football team).But then something weird happened. The pitch: "If the contributions can really reflect real situation and meet our demand well, the remuneration will be generously paid without doubt," Shen messaged me, after asking that we switch to the encrypted messaging app Signal and offering to pay me for my sources. What they're saying: The China Center for Contemporary World Studies did not respond to an emailed request for comment. Shen deleted his LinkedIn account after I sent a formal request for comment and questions about his identity and intentions to his email address and to his LinkedIn inbox. Between the lines: This appears to be some kind of Chinese party-state effort to collect information about the inner workings of America's China policy process, though the person behind the LinkedIn account could have been working for one of China's intelligence agencies, and simply using the IDCPC think tank as cover.A little bit of fun: After Shen offered to pay me for reports written with input from my sources, I told him I had an imminent meeting with a "former intelligence director" (an important-sounding but non-existent position) named "Krustofsky" — the last name of Krusty the Clown, a character from the Simpsons. The bottom line: This was a remarkably clumsy attempt to gather information.Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice a China-based Zoom executive with disrupting video meetings hosted by users outside China that commemorated the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The complaint reveals the now-terminated employee was sending the private data of some U.S.-based users directly to the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China's main civilian spy agency.Why it matters: Researchers and U.S. government officials have warned that the Chinese government might require China-based employees of U.S. companies to hand over private company data to Beijing. The DOJ's charges indicate those fears are valid.The Trump administration is concerned Chinese investments in the Israeli tech industry could harm Israeli and U.S. national security, assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs David Schenker said Monday at a conference organized by the SIGNAL think tank, which focuses on Israeli-Chinese academic cooperation. Why it matters: The Trump administration has previously raised concerns in private about Chinese involvement in Israel’s booming tech sector. This is likely the first time the administration has done so in public. Widespread corruption in China made Chinese government officials especially vulnerable to CIA recruitment, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping sought to mitigate this threat by weeding out corruption, according to a new by Foreign Policy magazine.Why it matters: The anti-corruption campaign, combined with China's other counterintelligence efforts, may have reduced the CIA's visibility into what is happening on the ground in China.Sign up for Mike Allen’s daily Axios AM and PM newsletters to get smarter, faster on the news that matters.

A screenshot of Aaron Shen's LinkedIn account before he deleted it. Image source: LinkedInA person on LinkedIn claiming to work for a think tank run by a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party department recently offered financial compensation for the names of my sources and for reports about the incoming Biden's administration's views on China.Why it matters: It was a surprisingly clumsy attempt to gain insider information about the U.S. government's China policy, suggesting that amid a chill in U.S.-China relations and a global pandemic, it's gotten harder for people in Beijing to know...

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Bethany is the China reporter at Axios. She is the author of the weekly Axios China newsletter, and she covers Beijing's influence and intentions.

https://www.axios.com/authors/baebrahimian

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

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A Chinese Communist Party think tank staffer offered to pay for sources

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