Jian Yang: A spy in the Beehive?

Oblique strategy tip of the week: Try reading the sections of this post from back to front.

So the Jian Yang as a Chinese spy story keeps on getting more interesting the further we dig and kudos to Matt Nippert and the New Zealand Herald for continuing to run the story while the only other mainstream media outlet (Stuff) remains conspicuously silent* on what should be a red hot story.

And Nippert’s most recent update makes it clear why it’s not a red hot story: “closer engagement with China”.

However just because we do a lot of business with China does not mean that we should ignore what is clearly a potentially serious security risk or believe the ridiculous claim made by Yang that this is racially motivated just because he is Chinese as there are a few extra threads to this story which need to be pulled before we might actually get an answer to our question: Is Yang a spy?

What is a spy?

Thanks to James Bond films and TV shows like Homeland many people have the picture of spys to be tuxedo wearing, martini swigging (shaken not stirred!), STD infected men, engaging in an ongoing series of high adrenaline stunts in an attempt to stave of midlife crisis or blonde haired, neurotic and mentally unstable women who get to wear hijabs and constantly worry if their co-worker is secretly working for Al-Qaeda**.

However the reality is a lot more prosaic as most spies could be simply defined as “government workers with high security clearances”*** who sit at their desks, work through files and cases, work on policy and spend more time sitting in meetings than is good for them. In short the same kind of work that most people in government do, albeit under the shroud of secrecy.

A spy can also be someone who is in a position to pass on information and documents to another party in a clandestine manner, usually to a foreign power (although industrial spies do exist) which is far closer to what Yang might be than having to drive an Aston Martin backwards down a snow covered slope while fending off masked attackers on skis with your bullet firing umbrella.

What is spying?

Again as with Bond and Homeland the idea of what spies actually do is usually very far from the truth. Spies collect information, do research/analysis and deal with issues of security risk, which usually comes in the form of a security vet or assessment (of a person, group or situation), which will be familiar to anyone who has ever had to get a security clearance.

There are some in the trade who do engage in things more traditionally seen as spying such as surveillance (both physical and signals), black bag (B&Es and various other genuinely covert activities like wet work) however these are a small minority compared to most who work from desks in offices like other government employees.

And like the wider definition of a spy noted above, spies can also be people in far more prosaic roles such as a student or a business person who just happens to have access to the source of information that an intelligence agency wants.

This often plays out as an intelligence service going to see a particular person who is going to travel to the country of interest and either asking that person to gather some information for them; for example if the person was a student going to study at a particular overseas university they might be asked to gather information on a particular topic taught by a particular professor, enrol in that course or simply attend a lecture by that person.

Then when said person gets back to NZ they might be asked to come in for an interview or simply write a report on what they saw and learnt which means that the person who gathered the information is never in the employ of any intelligence agency (and may never fully know the extent of what they have done) and the level of plausible deniability can be maintained.

And while some staff in foreign embassies (such as a military attaché) may be spies (or at least reporting to a second agency other than their own) spies can also (as seen above) exist well outside of any official channel and are simply doing their job of gathering information quietly and surreptitiously without attracting attention.

This makes Yang’s claim that the people he taught were not spies but “simply collecting information” seem unknowingly self-incriminating and duplicitous as Yang appears to be deliberately trying to paint a “spy” as the Hollywood trope rather than the reality he would know by having taught them.

So Yang in his role as both student in Australia and MP in NZ could quite easily be a spy without having to be a card carrying member of some secretive organisation as both his positions both here and in Oz would have given him access to a high level of information which would be exactly the stuff that a foreign intelligence agency would seek to obtain.

Just looking through the list of things the select committee he sat on saw is enough to raise a few eyebrows let alone consider that if Yang had been under orders to influence a certain bill or piece of legislation to favor Chinese interests.

None of this actually means that Yang is a spy but it does dispel the image that Yang is trying to paint with his denials that he is not a spy because he only taught people who “collect information” because that is exactly what spies do.

So why Yang?

In short the following facts apply to Jian Yang as has been listed in the media:

·         Was a member of the Chinese communist party

·         Attended and taught at a school for spies in China

·         Was told not to reveal his true educational/employment background when leaving China

·         Would not say who told him not to reveal this

·         Failed to fully declare this background when coming to NZ (and possibly in Oz)

·         Has never been given a security vet by the NZSIS or any other NZ agency

·         Was directly courted by National to join the party

·         Sat on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee for three years

·         Was removed from the above committee once his background was known

Yang is probably now under severe scrutiny by the NZSIS and other members of the Five Eyes, as international media interest in this story has been high (with the Financial Times in Hong Kong work with Newsroom NZ to first break the story, which is definitely worth the read), and while both National and Labour would probably hope this would go away its likely to not go away as there are far too many questions in this story and Yang’s background to just sweep it under the rug.

What questions?

In my previous work at Immigration NZ, dealing with things high risk, the main tool when deciding how to deal with any potential risk was to look over the individuals background and history, check their motivations for coming to NZ (and to go back to their home country) as well as any other clear links or issues which might arise before making a decision.

And in Yang’s case, doing things like failing to fully disclose his work and study history and the nature of his background are automatic concerns right off the bat. The fact that he appears to have knowingly withheld this information (because he was told by unknown persons not to) makes this omission even worse and makes his claim of being loyal to NZ a lot less credible.

It also raises the exact type of questions that have been raised; of exactly what he did hide; why did he hide it; who told him to hide it; how strong his links to those organisations still are, what, if any, information did he have access to which if passed to China would be of concern (possibly most if not all) and how much National knew when seeking him out to join the party.

Did anyone check Yang’s background prior to joining the National Party?

Both Immigration NZ and Citizenship would have checked Yang when he applied for a visa and to be a NZ citizen but unless there is something obvious (like a warning from a third party about the candidate) both agencies rely on the applicant to be honest in the information they provide and for that information to be in full and with sufficient detail to do the basic checks needed to process these types of applications.

So when Yang failed to declare his full background there was a big hole in his history and while it would be nice to imagine that an eagle eyed person working on those files might have noticed that and bothered to follow it up, it’s clear that they did not*4 and accepted Yang at his word.

Then there is the issue of the statement made by National Party President Peter Goodfellow (an incredibly rich man with a background worth Googling) that while Yang has not had a security vet he was vetted by the NZ political lobbying firm Saunders Unsworth.

Who is Saunders Unsworth?

On first hearing this, my ears pricked up as the idea of a bunch of lobbyists doing a security vet seemed stupid at best and majorly concerning at worst.

And upon checking out their website stupid went out the window and in waltzed concerning with a big grin on its face.

Seems that Saunders Unsworth, apart from shilling for a lot of large NZ business and overseas multinationals (because that’s what a lobbyist is), has a very obvious connections to China as a link (in Chinese on its main page) leads to a page which contains the following information in Mandarin:

The Company may arrange to introduce you to key decision makers within the Government of New Zealand and to assist you in obtaining regulatory approvals. It is also possible to provide your organization with advice on New Zealand government or public relations decision making.

Leaders of our Chinese team are trade experts Charles Finny. Charles has served as a deputy director of the New Zealand Embassy in Beijing for four years, proficient in Mandarin, and has served as director of the New Zealand Business Office for three and a half years in Taipei. Before taking over the post of Chief Executive Officer of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce, Charles has been the chief executive officer of the New Zealand Foreign Affairs Trade Department during the signing of the China and New Zealand Free Trade Agreements.

Apart from the fact that the company seems to be actively courting business in China and China only (as there were no other foreign language links on the site), its staffed and run by Ex national Party members or those favorable to the party as this rather bitchy little snippet from their profile of Steven Joyce shows:

His involvement with the Exclusive Brethren led to him being named as one of the ‘Hollow Men’ in Nicky Hager’s pathetic beat-up publication.

So a National party aligned bunch of lobbyists with clear links to China did the security vet on Jian Yang and declared him safe to bring into the National party and subsequently get access to all sorts of classified information and documents as a MP sitting on a select committee, it’s the kind of suggestion that ranks up there with vampires would be ok to run blood banks.

So is this more a problem with National?

Yes it is, yes indeed as National has been so far in bed with China and Chinese influences that it’s no surprise that someone like Yang has ended up where he is as why not, it’s business as usual for National.

So far the response of Bill English has been to do what he always does and simply say nothing of substance (truly he learnt well from John Key) and stall, delay and obfuscate as much as possible.

His comments directly pertaining to Yang simply sound like Sargent Shultz shouting "I know nothing!"  but whats new in Toy Town?

So what next?

With National out of government and Yang off the select committee for the moment we could all just pretend that the problem is dealt with but as a MP Yang still has potential to get access to documents and information and until properly vetted he remains a risk and as Nippert notes:

The New Zealand SIS are said to be "extraordinarily rigid" in its approach to foreign citizenship, to the extent that marrying a foreign national - or even being born in a friendly country such as Australia - raises significant hurdles for anyone attempting to secure clearance.

I can attest to that “rigidity” as I had to fight tooth and nail to get my clearance when I worked at Immigration simply due to having lived outside of a Five Eyes country for 10 years and that the NZSIS has no direct links to verify any information or documents I provided*5.

And this is not a racial or a “Chinese” thing. While not always happy with some of the behaviours of NZSIS or the GCSB (I remain a believer in intelligence reform) I don’t balk at the idea of national security or the need to ensure the security of New Zealand by doing checks on people in certain places and positions.

So that leaves me in the same position as the Daily Blog where I would not be surprised if Yang was found to be a severe risk or even if he stood up and announced he was passing information back to China as there is far more information to indicate that he is a risk than any possible bona fides he might have.

The problem, as Martyn Bradbury notes, is that National is so infested with this issue that Yang is really just the most obvious indication of how beholden National is to China (Judith Collins and Orivida or Maurice Williamson and Donghua Liu are the next the most obvious examples but as we know the rabbit hole goes a long way down for National and China) and in fact it would not even surprise me at this point that National was fully aware that Yang had intelligence links back to China and deliberately got him into the party and onto that select committee as part of a deal rather than any “accident” or “oversight”.

At a minimum Yang needs to be fully vetted by the SIS and NOT Saunders Unsworth.

What about Labour?

The incoming Labour government gets to make hay of any bad news that Yang generates for National but in the long run they too are keen to play with China but there just might be  more scruples in Labour than National, as well as less  links to China and Chinese businesses, to be able to moderate those influences down to things that are not outright espionage, spying or criminal behavior.

Perhaps not relying on Suanders Unsworth to do their security vetting is probably a good start.

Is this really that much of a risk?

China might be a major trading partner but they are not a democracy or a place which holds any political ideals to which Kiwis might aspire (unless you are a member of National then "all aboard!") and its human rights record and history make it a risk no matter how much milk product we sell there.

Also when you consider the Chinese use of cyber weapons and cyber warfare (defined as Advanced Persistent Threats or APTs) and things like the recent hack of Australian Defence secrets (not proven to be Chinese but it nicely illustrates the risk of how close to home these things can be) and the extent of Chinese influence in NZ (and how frantic National is to deny it) and in the Pacific (defined as soft power) Yang is just one person, but one person in a key position, with the perfect training and background to hoover up information or have a detrimental (or China flavored) effect on NZ laws and legislation, and in an environment of rising Chinese influence then the answer is YES!

And if there is a risk and it cant be mitigated then the natural response of the Squirrels (and any sane person) would be to cut Yang from seeing anything which would be of issue. The only other option is to court/allow political interference which given how this is possibly a Five Eyes issue may not be possible. This is not like an electoral secretary for an MP calling up to argue for a visa for the MP's "cousin" this is something which if allowed is a full blown risk with little to mitigate it.

So is Yang a spy?

We will probably never know for sure but you don’t need 100% certainty to have concerns about an area of risk and if the shoe fits then I reiterate my comment that if he was to be found a risk then I would not be surprised one bit.

*-another good example of why having the only two mainstream media outlets in NZ merge might not be a good idea.

**-because haven’t we all.

***-that’s a direct quote from one I know.

*4-Having seen how overstretched and often understaffed both INZ and DIA are in these roles I have some sympathy for the people completing these files

*5- To their satisfaction at least, I could prove my background but just not to their standards without going through a lot of extra hoops before I got my clearance