Two New Indictments Illuminate China’s Unconventional War Against The US: China Doesn’t Need Missiles to Attack the United States. They’re Already Using Hackers, Spies, and Meth Engineers

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Two New Indictments Illuminate China’s Unconventional War Against The US:

China doesn’t need missiles to attack the United States. They’re already using hackers, spies, and meth engineers

Two federal indictments unsealed this week provide fresh evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging an unconventional war against the United States, one that targets American lives, security, and scientific edge through hacking and industrial-scale drug trafficking.

On April 27, Chinese national Xu Zewei appeared in a federal court in Houston after being extradited from Italy. He faces a nine-count indictment for hacking campaigns between 2020 and 2021. According to prosecutors, officials of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) recruited Xu and co-conspirator Zhang Yu in early 2020 and instructed the pair to break into U.S. universities and steal research on vaccines, treatments, and testing from leading immunologists and virologists.

This case highlights two critical issues. First, during those early days of the pandemic, the CCP sought solutions to a crisis of its own making by stealing valuable information from America. Meanwhile, the party relentlessly covered up the virus’s origin (lab leak theory) and its failure to share vital and timely information with the world prevented many nations from seizing a crucial opportunity to respond effectively. As a result, we endured more than two years of measures that ultimately proved ineffective (i.e. lockdowns and masks) in controlling the spread of Covid-19, inflicting severe damage to our economies and well-being.

Second, Xu and Zhang should not be viewed as mere rogue hackers operating solo from basements out of boredom. The indictment reveals that at the time, Xu worked for Shanghai Powerock Network Co. Ltd., and Zhang for Shanghai Firetech — companies that function as extensions of the Chinese state’s cyber army.

Chinese State-Sponsored Hacking

Their case exposes a crucial and often overlooked element of Chinese state-sponsored hacking. While the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) manages its own dedicated hacking unit, the Chinese government also enlists contractors and private companies to conduct cyber operations against foreign entities, all under the watchful eye of government officials.

By leveraging the private sector for these hacking endeavors, Beijing has amplified its capacity to target foreign institutions, all while ensuring plausible deniability in case these hackers are apprehended.

The pair were also linked to the notorious HAFNIUM (Silk Typhoon) group, which exploited Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities to compromise nearly 13,000 organizations worldwide, including universities, law firms, think tanks, and defense contractors, between late 2020 and early 2021.

The lack of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and China often allows these hackers to evade justice for their crimes. Thus, it is remarkable that a high-profile hacker like Xu was apprehended in Italy while vacationing and successfully extradited to the U.S. His indictment and forthcoming trial will shed light on Beijing’s cyber operations and send a strong message to other hackers in China, including Xu’s co-conspirator Zhang, that accountability is on the horizon and that justice ultimately prevails.

A Second Indictment: The Meth Engineers

On the same day Xu was indicted, federal prosecutors in New York charged two other Chinese nationals, Wenfeng Cui (“Vincen”) and Fan Pang (“Jerry”), with conspiring to build and export an industrial-scale methamphetamine production facility capable of churning out nearly 900 pounds of meth per day.

A single lethal dose of methamphetamine is around 200 mg, with reports of some deaths occurring even at lower doses. At this rate, one day’s planned output could theoretically kill millions. In essence, what Cui and Pang designed was akin to a weapon of mass destruction. --->READ MORE HERE

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