A Singaporean national, accused of having spied on the United States on behalf of China, pleaded guilty this Friday, July 24, before a judge in Washington, announced the United States Department of Justice. Jun Wei Yeo, aka Dickson Yeo, admitted to being an undeclared agent of a foreign power. He faces ten years in prison.
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According to his admission of guilt, this doctor of public policy was recruited in 2015 by Chinese agents initially to provide information on countries in Asia, but was later called upon to focus on the United States. In 2018, he set up a bogus consulting firm to retrieve CVs and information on US servicemen or officials working in sensitive areas, which they then forwarded to Beijing.
Extreme tension between China and the United States
" After recruiting them, they paid them to write reports telling them that they were intended for clients in Asia but without revealing that they were transmitted to the Chinese government ," the document reads. His profile on the professional site LinkedIn presents him as a " political risk specialist building bridges between North America, Beijing, Tokyo and Southeast Asia ". His sentence is to be set at a hearing on October 9, 2020.
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This case comes against a backdrop of extreme tension between China and the United States, which in recent days have forcefully renewed their accusations of espionage against Beijing, going so far as to order the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston suspected of being an “ epicenter ” for Communist regime spies. “ The Chinese government is using various forms of duplicity to get sensitive information from gullible Americans. Mr. Yeo was a central piece of one of these tricks, ”commented in a statement John Demers, in charge of national security within the Ministry of Justice.