A 63-year-old Massachusetts man has been detained after being suspected of spying for the Chinese Communist Party. Litang Liang was reportedly reporting on Chinese dissidents in the U.S. who publicly spoke out against the Chinese government or in favor of Taiwan. Liang faces “one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without providing notification to the attorney general and one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without providing notification to the attorney general.”
The Department of Justice reports that Liang worked as a spy for China from 2018 to 2022. His work specifically looked to identify pro-Taiwan individuals and he sent lists of entire pro-Taiwan organizations back to China.
According to a DOJ announcement:
“It is alleged that Liang sent information regarding anti-PRC dissidents to PRC officials including: identification of an individual he accused of having ‘sabotaged’ PRC flags in Boston’s Chinatown in October 2018; video of a dissident attending the ‘Boston Stands with Hong Kong’ march in August 2019; and photographs of anti-PRC dissidents in front of the Boston Public Library in September 2019.”
“We will not tolerate the PRC’s efforts to interfere with public discourse and threaten civic participation in the United States.”
“This case demonstrates, once again, the lengths that the PRC government, including its Ministry of Public Security, will go to target people in the U.S. who exercise their rights to speak out against the PRC.”
Liang worked together with China’s overseas influence operation, the United Front Work Department, in order to relay his intelligence back to the Chinese Communist Party. The arrest comes months after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer stated that China has a “massive spy ring” within the U.S.
