A former CIA station chief says China has U.S. military service members and government employees in the “crosshairs” of its overseas spy operations.
Jian Zhao and Li Tian, both serving as active-duty soldiers in the Army, were taken into custody in early March for allegedly providing “Top Secret” information to people in China, as stated by the Department of Justice. Both Zhao and Tian were indicted by federal grand juries in Washington and Oregon.
According to federal prosecutors, Tian provided sensitive military information to a former soldier named Ruoyu Duan, who reportedly received payments from contacts in China. Tian then reportedly collected tens of thousands of dollars from selling this sensitive information.
The documents Tian allegedly sold included a Google Drive link with classified information on the Stryker combat vehicle. Tian also reportedly shared additional confidential details on U.S. weapons systems.
Hard drives that Jian Zhao allegedly sold to an individual in China
“I think anybody who serves in the U.S. government is in the crosshairs. And China will do it,” Hoffman said. “Sometimes they’ll run their recruitment operations posing as someone else. So maybe somebody doesn’t want to go spy for China, but they might pretend to be somebody else. Or they might contact you on social media, on LinkedIn or some other site and pose as someone not so nefarious when in fact they are.”
Hoffman said gaining intel from the U.S. military is one of the Chinese government’s “highest requirements.”
“They want to recruit U.S. military because there’s a probability we might go to war with China, and not just U.S. military, but NATO members as well, and throughout Asia. So they’ve got a massive intelligence apparatus,” he said.
China isn’t just targeting the U.S. military. It’s targeting many other aspects of American society as well, including academia.
Five former University of Michigan students were charged in October 2024 after they were allegedly caught spying on a National Guard training center for the Chinese government during a training session with the Taiwanese military.
(Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
The former University of Michigan students were confronted by a Utah National Guard sergeant major in August 2023 near a lake at Camp Grayling in Michigan.
Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute focusing on U.S. and China relations, told Fox News Digital the Chinese Communist Party “will exercise whatever tactics they feel they need to by hook or crook to get our military secrets,” adding China is “shameless.”
“This is a tactic that China is exercising in the new Cold War that we’re locked in with the Chinese Communist Party. And one of the things that is really striking is the low price that a lot of Americans are willing to sell their patriotism for and their allegiance for. Some of these people didn’t get that much money to sell some really sensitive military secrets over to the Chinese Communist Party,” Sobolik said.
Fox News’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
