China is burdened with a massive population, a backward countryside and a repressive communist government. Despite so many problems, China's communist leaders continue to play dangerous games with their country's future. In order to accomplish its military objectives, China is presently using organized crime and a sophisticated network of agents to infiltrate Canada and Mexico while simultaneously neutralizing FBI counterintelligence. At the same time, a mysterious new illness has appeared in China.
Since the public has been focused on the Iraq War, many Americans missed the Katrina Leung story and the FBI's dismal, though typical, performance. China certainly has problems, but penetrating America and embarrassing American security officials is not one of them. Katrina Leung, 49, was a socialite, a Republican activist in California and an FBI informant for almost two decades. In her work for the FBI, which involved gathering information on China, Leung collected around $1.7 million from grateful FBI officials. She must have been highly trusted. That trust, however, has come to an end. Leung was recently arrested and charged with being a longtime Chinese double agent. The details are rather juicy.
It appears that Leung seduced and manipulated her FBI handlers, enjoying sexual relations with at least two FBI officials. She photocopied classified FBI counterintelligence documents and transmitted them to the communists in Beijing. She was given access to secrets she never should have known about. FBI agent James J. Smith, one of her handlers, was also arrested. He had been part of the investigation into illegal Chinese funding of the 1996 Democratic presidential campaign.
A search of Leung's home has yielded classified documents. Her case illustrates the vulnerability of American counterintelligence and American society in general. Her interactions with Republican politicians, like former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon and Rep. David Dreier, ought to raise more than a few eyebrows. How much compromise and corruption did she spread? How deep did it go?
Related to this, there is a story developing out of Canada about Chinese subversion and infiltration that is remarkable. Former Foreign Service officer Brian McAdam is alleging that Chinese agents have corrupted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada's immigration services. According to McAdam, "China seeks to convert Canada into a highway for attacking the United States."
McAdam says that China is using organized crime to subvert Canadian law enforcement and border control. He alleges that Chinese organized crime groups have a treaty with the communists in Beijing for this purpose. In other words, the Chinese intelligence services are coordinating their moves with Chinese organized crime. Along with suspended RCMP Cpl. Robert Read, McAdam alleges corruption among high-ranking officials in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and External Affairs.
(See also FreedomSite.org.)
In 1992 McAdam discovered that Chinese crime groups had penetrated Canada's immigration computer system. The matter was investigated at the time, but the results of the investigation led to a cover-up instead of corrections. McAdam was sidelined for his efforts. Robert Read of the RCMP was suspended and charged with "service offenses" for his attempts to uncover Chinese penetrations.
Spies and criminals, however, are not the only things jumping from China to Canada. A highly infectious new disease, called SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), has entered Canada from China. Researchers say that SARS is 78 percent identical to sections of genes found in the common cold. Unlike the common cold, the virus's fatality rate is 4 percent. If it were to infect a quarter of the population of China it would kill 13 million people. If SARS spread globally more than 60 million people could die. The economies of affected regions are already anticipating trouble as people are afraid to travel or attend events at crowded public places. On Monday China announced another four deaths and another 109 cases of the disease. A total of 1,959 cases have been counted in China, along with 89 deaths. The number of cases appears to be doubling every two weeks. Within six months the number of cases could exceed one million. Worldwide 3,861 cases of SARS have been reported with 217 deaths. Previously the World Health Organization criticized China for covering up the extent of the initial outbreak.
When the outbreak first began there were reports of medical personnel dying from the disease, including prominent physicians. The Canadian press is reporting that SARS, after claiming its 14th victim in Canada, has infected medical staff despite the protection of gloves, gowns, masks and eye shields. (See Canada.com) It appears that the virus has the ability to spread by way of objects, not merely persons. This means that maximal medical precautions may not offer complete protection to those working with infected persons. The CDC has told Canadian officials that the SARS virus can remain viable on surfaces for up to 24 hours. Due to the virus's apparent movement through the Hong Kong sewer system, Chinese authorities are worried that cockroaches can transmit the disease. Undoubtedly, this is a virus that continues to surprise the experts. Despite similarity to the coronavirus family, SARS is absolutely novel. Instead of affecting the young and old in disproportionate numbers as most flu viruses, it strikes young adults with uncharacteristic frequency. Autopsies show that the virus can cause the lungs to hemorrhage, as happens in cases of hemorrhagic fever (e.g., in cases of Ebola).
A Times of India article dated 12 April offers a chilling though paranoid addendum to the story: "A top Russian medical expert says SARS could be Chinese bio-weapon." Professor Sergei Kolesnikov, a member of the Russian Medical Sciences Academy, has stated that SARS is a hybrid of two viruses - mumps and measles - that can only be produced in a laboratory. According to the Times of India, Kolesnikov told a conference in Irkutsk, Siberia, that China's silence about the outbreak is a tip-off. He added that the speed of transmission, the unprecedented infectious qualities of the virus and its severe toxicity lead to the inference that SARS may have spread from a Chinese military research facility. If you want to find a cure, suggested Kolesnikov, "look at where it originated." (See also Express India)
Russia is the motherland of paranoid thinking. It is a rule of thumb that every thief is fearful of having his goods stolen. A technocratic elite that itself is engaged in dirty business - i.e., in the development of biological weapons - is bound to assume that other governments are doing exactly the same. An AFP story out of Moscow, dated April 11 (see AP/Yahoo) presents the headline, "Deadly pneumonia could be a biological weapon." Moscow's chief of epidemiological services, Nikolai Filatov, also thinks SARS is man-made.
According to Chinese researchers the virus mutates rapidly so that the development of a vaccine will not be easy. (See Financial Times) It has also been reported that communist officials in Beijing have attempted to prevent Chinese medical researchers from publishing their findings about SARS to the world. One Chinese research institute went ahead and posted its findings without official permission.
It is hard to say how this virus will affect China. Asia is deeply concerned. North America is yet to see this level of concern, though Canadian hospitals seem unable to contain the virus as yet.
