#Chinese consulates in NYC, San Francisco identified as main spy hubs

Last week, the US ordered the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, accusing Chinese diplomats there of turning the facility into an illegal spying hub. However, according to a report this week, San Francisco and New York consulates are the central locales for Chinese spying operations in the United States.

The order was made to “protect American intellectual property and Americans’ private information,” a US National Security Council spokesperson said at the time.

The problem, however, is that the Houston, Texas-based consulate is not the Communist nation’s primary hub for espionage.

The Chinese Communist Party operates two major hotspots for espionage, their consulates in San Francisco and New York City.

“San Francisco is the real gem but the US won’t close it,” a former US intelligence official told Axios this week.

The likelihood of either of those two consulates being closed is less so than that of Houston, which the Trump administration appears to be making an example out of.

China has long been accused of using its embassy and consulates for questionable purposes, such as collecting information on Uighurs and Chinese dissident groups and exerting control over Chinese students.

As one Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) president told Foreign Policy magazine in 2018, “I feel like the tendency is that the consulate tries to control CSSAs more and more.”

The embassy and consulates, according to Axios, have paid students to take part in demonstrations for visiting Chinese leaders, as well as asking CSSA presidents to hold study sessions on party thought and to send photos to the government to “ensure compliance.”

San Francisco has long been the more prominent of the two consulates with regard to espionage.

Foreign intelligence operations in the Bay Area have focused their sights on collecting trade secrets and technology from nearby Silicon Valley, according to Politico.

“It’s a very subtle form of intelligence collection that is more business connected and oriented,” one intelligence official told the outlet back in 2018.

The source added that spies “are very much part of the everyday environment” in the region.

Aside from gathering technology secrets, Chinese officials have also long been focused on collecting intelligence on internal American political affairs.

In 2018, Politico reported at the time, a well-placed staffer in Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s California office was recruited by the Chinese government to report back about US politics.

Feinstein (D-Calif.) employed the Chinese spy for nearly two decades as her chauffeur, a gofer in her office and a liaison to the Asian American community, the San Francisco Chronicle reported at the time.

The paper reported that the man even attended Chinese consulate functions for the California senator.

A Feinstein spokesperson said at the time that her office doesn’t comment on personnel matters.