French spy charged with treason fell for Chinese honeytrap

By David Chazan

French Defense Minister Florence Parly

Paris -- A former French intelligence agent facing treason charges was reportedly ensnared by a Chinese "honeytrap" when he began an affair with an interpreter in Beijing, it emerged on Sunday.
The retired spy, named as Henri M, 71, and another former operative, Pierre-Marie H, 66, are accused of passing "information detrimental to fundamental national interests" to a foreign power.
According to a report in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Henri M fell for a woman who worked as an interpreter for the French ambassador in Beijing after he was posted there in 1997 as station chief for France's DGSE foreign intelligence service. 

Security sources confirmed the report.
The interpreter, who has not been named, was reportedly suspected of being an informant. 

Pierre Morel, the ambassador, became concerned about the relationship and asked for Henri M to be recalled to France in 1998.
Henri M left the intelligence service and started a business importing Chinese furniture.

He returned to Beijing in 2003, where he married the former interpreter the following year. 

The couple moved to Hainan Island, which serves as China's nuclear submarine base, and Henri M opened a restaurant.
Many questions remain about why he and Pierre-Marie H were only arrested two decades after Henri M first came under suspicion. 

Franck Renaud, author of a 2010 book that alluded to the scandal, said: "Did the DGSE want to avoid a crisis and, at the same time, let Chinese intelligence believe that Henri M might be a double agent feeding them false information?"
Florence Parly, the French defence minister, confirmed the charges but declined to specify whether the foreign power involved was China.

The Godfather's Daughter: An Unlikely Story of Greed, Treason, and Corruption

China Approved More Ivanka Trump Trademarks the Same Week As Daddy’s ZTE Pivot
By David Boddiger

Optics and ethics are two words that simply are lacking in the Trump family lexicon.
We already knew Donald Trump’s recent about-face on the Chinese telecom company ZTE—considered a national security threat by both Democrats and Republicans—was suspect. 

Shortly after Trump tweeted earlier this month that he was reversing policy on ZTE, news reports surfaced that the Chinese government had agreed to grant $500 million in loans to an Indonesian resort project that would directly enrich Donald Trump. 

The loan was announced just 72 hours before Trump tweeted his order to bail out ZTE from impending closure.
Now, the government ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is reporting that the Chinese government approved five trademark applications for Ivanka Trump’s businesses the same week Trump tweeted his pro-China reversal. 

Another trademark was approved the previous week.
The trademarks, applied for in March 2017, give the president’s daughter’s company rights in China on goods including bath mats, textiles, and baby blankets, CREW said.
“Ivanka Trump Marks LLC already holds more than a dozen trademarks in the country as well as multiple pending applications. China is also a major supplier of Ivanka Trump-branded merchandise,” CREW stated.
Ivanka has placed her part of the business that bears her name in a trust, but she continues to receive profits, the watchdog group said. 

Last year, three of her business’s trademark applications in China were approved the same day she and her husband, presidential adviser Jared Kushner, had dinner with Xi Jinping at the family’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Also, Trump’s looming trade war with China by way of new tariffs on Chinese goods would conveniently exempt clothing, a not-so-subtle benefit to his daughter’s businesses.
On Friday, Trump announced via Twitter that he had struck a deal with ZTE to put the company back in business in exchange for China’s payment of a substantial fine, its placement of U.S. compliance officers at the firm, and changes to its management team, The New York Times reported. 

In doing so, Trump blamed former President Barack Obama and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Democrats in general, for ZTE’s past spying misdeeds, while unabashedly making himself out to be a hero.
But it isn’t just Democrats who are angered by Trump’s ZTE policy shift. 

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio spent all week “raising alarm bells” over Trump’s dealing, according to NBC News, including delivering a “25-minute tirade on the Senate floor.”
“Yes they have a deal in mind. It is a great deal... for #ZTE & China,” he tweeted on Friday.
Additionally, both chambers of Congress advanced amendments to block any executive action ordered by Trump that would benefit ZTE, NBC reported.

Australia Seeks Foreign-Meddling Curbs After China Dust-Up

• New legislation will update espionage and treason definitions
• Political lobbyists obliged to register ties to foreign powers

By Jason Scott

Sam Dastyari in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and V (franchise)

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he would introduce legislation to limit political meddling by foreign powers, citing reports of Chinese influence over a local lawmaker and Russia’s U.S. election interference.
People or organizations acting in the interests of foreign powers would be required to register and disclose their ties, Turnbull said, adding that foreign political donations would also be banned.
“Foreign powers are making unprecedented and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence the political process,” Turnbull told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday. 

“We will not tolerate foreign-influence activities that are in any way covert, coercive or corrupt.”

Senator Sam Dastyari resigned from a senior position with the opposition Labor Party last week after he acknowledged warning a Chinese businessman linked to the Community Party that his phones were being tapped by Australian intelligence agencies. 

Dastyari, who remains in parliament, had previously said that a Chinese company with links to Beijing had paid a A$1,670 ($1,275) travel bill for him.
“We have recently seen disturbing reports about Chinese influence,” Turnbull said, adding the reforms were not targeted at any one country. 

Asked about Dastyari, Turnbull said: “Senator Dastyari’s solicited money from a Chinese national. It was as blatant an act of political interference you could imagine.”
Australians were familiar with the “very credible reports” that Russia sought to actively undermine and influence the U.S. election, Turnbull said.

Espionage, Treason
Under the legislation, which wasn’t expected to be voted on until next year, the definition of espionage and treason would be updated to make failing to report the receipt of information -- not just passing it on -- an offense.
“Foreign intelligence services are engaged in covert influence and interference on an unprecedented scale,” Turnbull said. 

“This activity is being directed against a range of Australian interests, from our political systems, to our commercial interests, to expatriate communities who have made Australia their home.”
Australia has long sought to balance its military alliance with the U.S., which bases as many as 2,500 Marines in the country, and China, which is its largest trading partner. 

China’s rising soft-power influence and militarization of the South China Sea have become an increasing concern in the Asia-Pacific region.