(FiveNation.com)- According to a newsletter, which has since been deleted, one of the Deans from the United States National Defense University was in charge of a trip to a Chinese Communist Party think-tank, which the FBI identified as a “front group for Chinese intelligence gathering and abroad spy recruiting.”
Washington’s higher education institution has been around since 1976.
On the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences website, the FBI noted the SASS’s close links to the Chinese Communist Party’s primary intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security.
According to the FBI, the SASS workers operate as “spotters and assessors” of possible Western spies. The FBI says MSS agents have used SASS membership to cover identities and influence the foreign policy of other countries.
The SASS was a crucial component in a 2019 criminal case involving a retired CIA officer selling sensitive US defense data to the Chinese Communist Party.
Currently Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs at the National War College of the National Defense University, Cynthia Watson led a 12-person team to Shanghai in May 2005 to tour SASS.
According to the SASS’s now-deleted newsletter, on May 16, 12 people from the National Defense University’s National War College visited and discussed the internal and external environment of China’s peaceful rise, the Asia-Pacific region’s security and stability, and the Middle East democratization.
Among those present were SASS Vice President Huang Renwei, Foreign Affairs Office Director Li Yihai, and Deputy Director Wang Jian.
Watson’s visit to SASS may be seen as a conflict of interest given her position at the National War College, which trains future military, diplomatic, and other civilian leaders for high-level policy, command, and staff duties.
Watson began teaching here in August 1992.
Watson has also written for the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), one of the Chinese regime’s most important foreign influence organizations. She called the Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy “China-centric” in a June 2020 interview.
Aside from the Chinese Communist Party, she noted that the world system issues are not solely due to one dictatorship.
In another way, “you need to question whether the problem is a people and a nation that view themselves as having a place in the world, or is it a regime,” she concluded.
The media previously reported how high-ranking officials in the Biden White House – including the person directing the National Security Agency’s employment process – were associated with SASS.
West Point has links to Chinese Communist Party influence groups.
