China Holds Secret Trial for Rights Lawyer After 3 Years in Detention

By Chris Buckley

Wang Quanzhang, left, and his wife Li Wenzu, with their child in eastern China’s Shandong Province in 2015.

BEIJING — Nearly three and half years after Wang Quanzhang disappeared in China’s fierce offensive against human rights lawyers, he faced charges of subversion in a closed trial on Wednesday, capping a year when the Communist Party redoubled efforts to stifle political and religious dissent.
Mr. Wang, 42, was the last to be prosecuted among the hundreds of rights lawyers and activists rounded up in a sweep that started on July 9, 2015. 

In a blaze of propaganda, the police accused him and other combative attorneys of disrupting trials, fanning discontent, and plotting to overthrow the Communist Party.
But while others detained in the crackdown were released with warnings, put on bail after making rehearsed confessions on television, or tried and sentenced, Mr. Wang remained held in secrecy. 

His trial was also swaddled in security to ward off protests.
“This whole process has been illegal, so how could I expect an open and fair trial?” Mr. Wang’s wife, Li Wenzu, said in a telephone interview before the hearing. 

“But my demand is still that he be freed as not guilty, because that’s what he is.”
The police and guards kept Ms. Li from leaving her apartment in Beijing to attend the trial in Tianjin, a port city about 65 miles southeast from her home in the capital. 

During Mr. Wang’s detention, the authorities rejected repeated attempts by her and a succession of attorneys to visit him or find out more about his status and health.
The mobile phone of Liu Weiguo, the lawyer who represented Mr. Wang at the trial was turned off on Wednesday evening, and it was unclear when the trial ended. 

But the Tianjin Second Intermediate People’s Court that heard the case said on its website that a verdict would be announced at a later date. 

“Because state secrets were involved, the court decided under the law not to hold a public trial,” the statement said.

Li Wenzu shaved her head earlier this month to protest the detention of her husband, Wang Quanzhang, a human rights lawyer.

“This will be a show trial, carefully censored and tightly controlled,” said Terence Halliday, a research professor at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago who studies Chinese defense lawyers. “Through Wang Quanzhang’s protracted disappearance, China’s state security and public security have been sending a chilling message to activist lawyers — keep silent or this could be your fate too.”
Still, one detail slipped out from the secret proceedings that suggested Mr. Wang remained unbowed. 

While in the courtroom, he dismissed his lawyer, Mr. Liu, who was not chosen by his family, Ms. Li said, citing a message from Mr. Liu. 

That step may have forced an adjournment in the trial, but Ms. Li had no further details.
Mr. Wang’s case, though, has been overshadowed this year by other controversies in China as Xi Jinping, the party leader and president, has sought to extinguish potential threats to party rule.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims in East Turkestan, a northwest region, have been detained in concentration camps where they are forced to renounce their religious beliefs and pledge loyalty to the party. 

Several independent Protestant churches have been shut down, and an outspoken pastor of one was detained. 

Two Canadians have been detained and accused of threatening national security in what supporters say was reprisal for a Chinese telecommunications executive’s arrest in Canada.
The detentions of lawyers and advocates in 2015 were a turning point on the way to more hard-line policies, said experts and friends of Mr. Wang. 

His prolonged detention came to symbolize the Communist Party’s growing readiness to override promised legal protections if they got in the way of silencing perceived threats, they said.
“The mass detention and surveillance campaign and other persecution in East Turkestan are the worst examples we know of at the moment, but they are connected to what is going on more widely in China,” said Eva Pils, a professor of law at King’s College London who studies China’s human rights lawyers and knows Mr. Wang. 

“Human rights defenders are very openly characterized as enemies of the people, connected to other, outside enemies.”

Peter Dahlin, who was detained and then deported from China, at home in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2016.

In the face of official pressure and rebuffs, Ms. Li and the families of other detained lawyers coalesced into a determined and creative resistance.
They have protested using red buckets, attempted walking to the detention center where Mr. Wang was held, and this month they shaved their heads to protest what they said was judges’ failure to enforce Mr. Wang’s rights under Chinese law. (The Mandarin Chinese word for hair (fa) sounds similar to the word for law.)
“In Chinese, having no hair sounds like having no law,” Ms. Li said. 

“We meant that we can do without our hair, but we can’t do without law.”
The prosecutors’ allegations against Mr. Wang appeared to distill several themes that the government has used to attack China’s human rights lawyers as a whole.
They accused him of “stirring up trouble” by calling together lawyers and supporters to demand that detainees be freed; of maligning China’s legal system online while representing members of a banned spiritual movement, Falun Gong; and colluding with a foreign-funded group to “propagate methods and tricks for resisting the government,” according to a 2017 prosecutors’ document shared by Peter Dahlin, a Swedish rights advocate named in the allegations.
Mr. Dahlin, who was detained in Beijing for 23 days in 2016 and deported from China for his work helping rights activists, said he was sure the document was authentic and rejected the claim that Mr. Wang’s activities amounted to “subversion of state power.”

Police officers blocking the streets on Wednesday in front of the Number 2 Intermediate People’s Court in Tianjin, where Mr. Wang is being tried.

Mr. Wang was born in Shandong Province, east China, and was drawn to activism even before he had graduated from law school. 

Like many other Chinese attorneys who take on contentious cases, his clients were mostly ordinary citizens in disputes with officials over land seizures, detentions and police abuses.
Even more than most rights lawyers, he has a stubborn streak, his wife and friends said.
His unbending personality “kept him going through years of abusive, incommunicado detention and given him the strength to refuse a forced confession,” Michael Caster, a human rights advocate who formerly worked in Beijing with Mr. Wang, said by email. 

“He was never one to be intimidated by threats from judges or by the physical abuse of police.”
When asked about Mr. Wang and others detained in the 2015 crackdown, Chinese officials have said that they have been given all their legal rights. 

But legal experts have said that his long, secretive confinement and lack of access to his own lawyers flouted China’s laws. 

In October, a United Nations Human Rights Council group condemned the secretive detention of Mr. Wang and two other Chinese advocates as a violation of international laws.
Chinese courts come under the guidance of the Communist Party and rarely, if ever, find defendants innocent in politically charged cases. 

Some of his supporters said Mr. Wang could be given a suspended prison sentence like other some lawyers who were detained in 2015. 

But others were less hopeful of early release.
“Even though Quanzhang is innocent, the outlook is bleak,” said Xie Yanyi, a recently disbarred Chinese rights attorney who tried to attend Mr. Wang’s trial. 

“Wang Quanzhang’s wife and loved ones need to be mentally prepared.”
Mr. Xie said he was blocked by plain clothes officers from trying to reach the court in Tianjin and supporters who got near the courthouse were bundled away by the police, said reporters there.
Mr. Wang’s wife, Ms. Li, said that until he was detained she knew little about his work. 

But she has since become a savvy advocate for her husband while trying to protect their 6-year old son. 

In a public letter in July addressed to Mr. Wang, she said she told their son that his father had gone off to battle monsters.
“Let’s go help dad fight the monsters,” the son told a friend, Ms. Li wrote. 

“After they’re beaten, dad can come home.”

If forced to take sides, most countries would pick the US over China

By Huileng Tan

As the changing nature of the U.S.-China relationship reshapes global political and economic landscapes, many countries are wondering if they'll eventually be forced to take sides.
If it comes to that, many will choose to align themselves with America, according to Fraser Howie, an independent analyst who has written books about China and its financial system.
"They're going to go with the States," he told CNBC on Wednesday.
Although much of Asia has become wealthier on the back of China's economic rise since the start of the communist country's reforms 40 years ago, the East Asian giant has not managed to grow its soft power much, Howie told CNBC's "Street Signs."
"In 30 years of growth, much of Asia (has become) rich on the back of China, (but) they've failed to make friends. I think this is a weakness of Chinese soft power — they've failed to make friends and people are more nervous of China rather than friendly towards it," he said.
China's rise from an impoverished country to the world's second-largest economy in the span of 40 years has emboldened the Asian country to expand its footprint economically, politically and technologically. 

Many see that development as a threat to the U.S. that could bring about a seismic change in the world order Washington helped shape.
"China's goal, simply put, is to replace the U.S. as the world's largest global superpower," FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a press conference in December where the U.S. Justice Department announced hacking charges against two Chinese nationals.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is currently locked in a bitter dispute with Beijing that has the two sides arguing over not just the tariffs and non-tariff barriers affecting the balance of trade, but also how they fundamentally treat each other's companies.

President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

That means businesses, as well, may have to decide on which side they choose to align themselves, the co-founder of billion-dollar tech company Tradeshift told CNBC last month.
Countries neighboring China — many of which are small — may not want to antagonize Beijing, Howie said, but many people feel they have been "hard done" by China.
"They don't feel that China has played fair in many areas. They feel China is a bully — and certainly it is — and they are using it as an opportunity to try and push back," Howie said.
Even so, many nations around the world that find themselves in a delicate balancing act between U.S. and Chinese interests may be forced to pick a side.
Meanwhile, many allies and partners of the U.S. — and even departing Secretary of Defense James Mattis — have expressed frustration that the Trump administration has not treated international commitments as well as they'd have liked.
"It makes it very difficult for many of the countries, especially in (Southeast Asia), because so many countries in Asia have largely dismissed politics as it was; there's been an economic direction of travel that everyone has been comfortable with for 20, 30 years — and that's now fundamentally changing," said Howie.
One country that has openly expressed concern is Singapore.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told CNBC in October last year that his country's relationship with the world's top two economies also "depends on how the U.S. relationship with China develops."
"If there are tensions between America and China, we will be asked to pick a side. It may not be directly, but you will get the message that: 'We would like you to be with us, and are you with us? If not, does that mean you're against us?' And that's to put it gently," Lee said.
Countries would ideally not have to take sides, but that may not pan out, said Howie: "There should be room for cooperation and there certainly needs to be a change of practices, but the world is going to look very different in a decade."

Canada Presses China on Arbitrary Detention of Citizens

By Catherine Porter and Chris Buckley

Michael Kovrig, left, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur with high-level contacts in North Korea, have been detained in China.

TORONTO — Canada tried to turn up pressure on China on Saturday over the detention of two Canadians caught up in a struggle between global superpowers, with its foreign minister calling their imprisonment “arbitrary” and “a precedent that is worrying not only for Canada but for the world.”
China seized the two Canadians, the former diplomat Michael Kovrig and the entrepreneur and writer Michael Spavor, shortly after Canada detained a Chinese telecommunications executive at the behest of the United States. 

The detentions of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor have rattled Canadians, many of whom do business and have family in China, and the government stressed that it was working feverishly for their release.
“We also believe this is not only a Canadian issue,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a conference call on Saturday. 

“It is an issue that concerns our allies.”
Canada is in a tricky spot, boxed in between its two largest trading partners and worried about having to choose sides. 

After feeling burned by negotiations to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, the country is trying to strengthen trade relations with China to lessen dependence on economic ties to the United States.
Ms. Freeland said that on Friday she met with the Chinese ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, for a second time and that Canadian ambassadors around the world are rallying their counterparts for support. 

The United States State Department, the European Union and British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt have all said they are concerned about the arrests.
Both were detained after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, a powerful Chinese telecommunications equipment company. 

She was arrested on Dec. 1 while she was transferring flights in Vancouver.

On Friday, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan held talks in Washington with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis, including a discussion on securing the release of the two Canadians.

Canadian authorities arrested Meng at the request of American prosecutors who want to extradite her on charges of fraudulently convincing banks to facilitate transactions that breached United States sanctions against Iran. 

Meng was granted bail after a three-day hearing, and if a Canadian court agrees to an extradition request, she can still appeal.
“Canada is a rule-of-law country and has been behaving according to the rule of law,” Ms. Freeland said. 

“Our allies understand what is at stake, and it was good to have them come out and say that publicly.”
Chinese authorities arrested Mr. Kovrig on a street in Beijing. 

Mr. Kovrig has worked since early 2017 for the International Crisis Group, an organization that tries to resolve international conflicts.
Soon after, the police in China arrested Mr. Spavor, a Canadian writer and businessman who runs an organization that promotes tours of North Korea. 

The Chinese government has accused both men of “endangering national security,” but it has not laid out more specific allegations.
A person familiar with Mr. Kovrig’s case, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive details about it, said he has been questioned morning, afternoon and evening by Chinese investigators, and is not allowed to turn the lights off in his cell when he wants to sleep at night.
The Canadian ambassador to Beijing, John McCallum, and two Canadian consular officers visited Mr. Kovrig for about a half-hour four days after he was arrested, and he will be allowed one consular a visit a month, the person said. 

But Mr. Kovrig has not been allowed to see a lawyer, or family and loved ones. 

Nor has he been allowed to sign a letter that would allow him to retain a lawyer, the person said.
Chinese officials have not said outright that they would release Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor in exchange for Meng’s return to China. 

But they have left little doubt that their arrests were in reprisal.
“Those who accuse China of detaining some person in retaliation for the arrest of Meng should first reflect on the actions of the Canadian side,” the Chinese ambassador to Ottawa, Mr. Lu, wrote last week in an op-ed article in The Globe and Mail.

China has cast Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, as the victim of human rights abuses.

Ms. Freeland said Chinese officials had not made that direct connection.
“It would, of course, be highly inappropriate for there to be any connection,” she said in the conference call. 

But she also painted a sharp contrast between Meng’s legal protections in Canada and the secretive arrests of the Canadians in China.
“Canada has been behaving scrupulously,” Ms. Freeland said. 

“Ms. Meng has been given absolute access to due process.”
Complicating the situation, Trump mused in an interview that he might intervene in Meng’s case, if it would result in trade concessions from China.
Ms. Freeland insisted politics were not involved.
"As we’ve made very clear in the case of Meng, the issue is Canada abiding by its extradition treaty commitments and following rule-of-law procedures,” she said. 

“We’ve also made clear a number of times that Canada does not believe it is appropriate to use extradition proceedings for any sort of politicized end.”
In the past week, a third Canadian was detained by the police in China, on accusations of working illegally in the country. 

Canadian officials have not considered the detention in the same light, and Ms. Freeland did not mention the case on Saturday.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters that the third Canadian, Sarah Donata McIver, a teacher from Alberta, was under administrative detention for working illegally in China.
That’s a kind of punishment that the police can impose in cases that fall short of criminal charges. Ms. Hua didn’t say how long that detention would last, but in the normal run of such cases it would be up to 15 days.

Huawei Threat

How arrest of Chinese princess exposes regime’s world domination plot
By Steven W. Mosher

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest in Vancouver on Dec. 6 led to immediate blowback.
Furious Chinese Communists have begun arresting innocent Canadians in retaliation. 

So far, three of these “revenge hostages” have been taken and are being held in secret jails on vague charges. 

Beijing hints that the hostage count may grow if Meng is not freed and fast.
Even for a thuggish regime like China’s, this kind of action is almost unprecedented.
So who is Meng Wanzhou?
Currently under house arrest and awaiting extradition to the US, she will face charges that her company violated US sanctions by doing business with Iran and committed bank fraud by disguising the payments it received in return.
But to say that she is the CFO of Huawei doesn’t begin to explain her importance — or China’s reaction.
It turns out that “Princess” Meng, as she is called, is Communist royalty. 

Her grandfather was a close comrade of Mao Zedong during the Chinese Civil War, who went on to become vice governor of China’s largest province.
She is also the daughter of Huawei’s Founder and Chairman, Ren Zhengfei. 

Daddy is grooming her to succeed him when he retires.
In other words, Meng is the heiress apparent of China’s largest and most advanced hi-tech company, and one which plays a key role in China’s grand strategy of global domination.
Huawei is a leader in 5G technology and, earlier this year, surpassed Apple to become the second largest smartphone maker in the world behind Samsung.
But Huawei is much more than an innocent manufacturer of smartphones. It is a spy agency of the Chinese Communist Party.
How do we know?
Because the party has repeatedly said so.
First in 2015 and then again in June 2017, the party declared that all Chinese companies must collaborate in gathering intelligence.
“All organizations and citizens,” reads Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law, “must support, assist with, and collaborate in national intelligence work, and guard the national intelligence work secrets they are privy to.”
All Chinese companies, whether they are private or owned by the state, are now part and parcel of the party’s massive overseas espionage campaign.
Huawei is a key part of this aggressive effort to spy on the rest of the world. 

The company’s smartphones, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, are used to “maliciously modify or steal information,” as well as “conduct undetected espionage.” 

Earlier this year the Pentagon banned the devices from all US military bases worldwide.
But Huawei, which has been specially designated as a “national champion,” has an even more important assignment from the Communist Party than simply listening in on phone conversations.
As a global leader in 5G technology, it has been tasked with installing 5G “fiber to the phone” networks in countries around the world.
In fact, “Made in China 2025” — the party’s aggressive plan to dominate the cutting-edge technologies of the 21st century — singles out Huawei as the key to achieving global 5G dominance.
Any network system installed by Huawei working hand-in-glove with China’s intelligence services raises the danger of not only cyber espionage, but also cyber-enabled technology theft.
And the danger doesn’t stop there.
The new superfast 5G networks, which are 100 times faster than 4G, will literally run the world of the future. 

Everything from smartphones to smart cities, from self-driving vehicles to, yes, even weapons systems, will be under their control.
In other words, whoever controls the 5G networks will control the world — or at least large parts of it.
Huawei has reportedly secured more than 25 commercial contracts for 5G, but has been locked out of an increasing number of countries around the world because of spying concerns.
The “Five Eyes” — Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the US — have over the past year waged a concerted campaign to block the Chinese tech giant from dominating next-generation wireless networks around the world. 

Not only have they largely kept Huawei out of their own countries, they have convinced other countries like Japan, India and Germany to go along, too.
Yet Huawei is far from finished. 

The company has grown into a global brand over the past two decades because, as a “national champion,” it is constantly being fed and nourished by the party and the military with low-interest-rate loans, privileged access to a protected domestic market, and other preferential treatment.
These various state subsidies continue, giving Huawei a huge and unfair advantage over its free market competitors.
Huawei stands in the same relationship to the Chinese Communist Party as German steelmaker Alfried Krupp did to Germany’s National Socialists in the days leading up to WWII.
Just as Germany’s leading supplier of armaments basically became an arm of the Nazi machine after war broke out, so is China’s leading hi-tech company an essential element of the party’s cold war plan to dominate the world of the future.
As far as “Princess” Meng is concerned, I expect that she will be found guilty of committing bank fraud, ordered to pay a fine, and then released. 

Even a billion dollar fine would be chump change for a seventy-five-billion-dollar corporation like Huawei.
The real payoff of her arrest lies elsewhere. 

It has exposed the massive campaign of espionage that Huawei is carrying out around the world at the behest of the Party.

It has revealed how that Party dreams of a new world order in which China, not America, is dominant.
The two Chinese characters that make up Huawei’s name literally mean, “To Serve China.” 

That’s clear enough, isn’t it?

Huawei is a spy agency of the Chinese Communist Party

Beijing's three revenge hostages for arrest of tech princess prove that smartphone maker is part of China's plan to dominate the 21st Century

• China expert Steven W. Mosher argues that Chinese tech firm Huawei is part of Communist spy apparatus
• Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou faces extradition the the US on charges of bank fraud and sanction violatons
• China has furiously retaliated by detaining three Canadians on vague charges 

By KEITH GRIFFITH 

Beijing's furious response to the arrest of a tech 'princess' who is a top executive at Huawei reveals that the company is part and parcel of China's spying apparatus, an expert has argued.
'Huawei is much more than an innocent manufacturer of smartphones. It is a spy agency of the Chinese Communist Party,' wrote China expert Steven W. Mosher in a column on Saturday for the New York Post.
Mosher points out that since the December 1 arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada, where she faces extradition to the U.S. on bank fraud and international sanction violation charges, China has rounded up at least three Canadian 'revenge hostages'.
'Beijing hints that the hostage count may grow if Meng is not freed and fast,' writes Mosher. 

'Even for a thuggish regime like China's, this kind of action is almost unprecedented.'

Huawei Technologies CFO Meng Wanzhou as she exits the court registry following the bail hearing at British Columbia Superior Courts in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 11

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is seen on a state visit to Portugal earlier this month. Experts argue that 'private' tech firm Huawei is actually an arm of China's spy apparatus

Mosher, the author of Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream is the New Threat to World Order, says the dramatic response adds to evidence that Huawei, the second largest smartphone maker in the world after Samsung, is no simple private competitor to other tech firms around the world.
Huawei has been nourished by China's ruling Communist Party and military through low-interest loans and protected access to the domestic market, Mosher writes.
China has also repeatedly declared that all Chinese companies, private or not, must assist the government with gathering intelligence.
Under Chinese law, 'all organizations and citizens... must support, assist with, and collaborate in national intelligence work, and guard the national intelligence work secrets they are privy to.'
All of which has led the U.S. and its allies to view Huawei with extreme skepticism as the company attempts to spearhead the roll out of 5G network technology worldwide, potentially giving the Chinese government access to and control over information networks.
Huawei has already been labeled a national security threat by U.S. officials, who urged allies who host American military bases to ban the use of Huawei products in their communications infrastructure.
'Huawei stands in the same relationship to the Chinese Communist Party as German steelmaker Alfried Krupp did to Germany's National Socialists in the days leading up to WWII,' writes Mosher.
German arms maker Krupp effectively became a wing of the Nazi party during the war, Mosher notes.
Adding to the drama of Meng's arrest is the fact that she is no simple executive - she is the daughter of Huawei founder and president Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the People's Liberation Army and a Communist Party elite.

Meng (above) is the daughter of Huawei's founder and president

Meng was arrested in Vancouver on an American warrant accusing her of a scheme to sell U.S. equipment to Iran in violation of sanctions law, and of falsifying bank records to cover up the transactions.
Lawyers for Meng have argued that she broke no U.S. or Canadian laws, and she is currently free in Canada on bail of C$10 million.
Since her arrest, China has arrested at least three Canadian citizens: former diplomat Michael Kovrig, consultant Michael Spavor and most recently teacher Sarah McIver.
Kovrig and Spavor were detained on December 10 and accused of engaging in activities that 'endanger China's national security'.
McIver's detention was confirmed on Thursday, when Beijing confirmed that it had arrested the Alberta native for 'working illegally' in the country.
Canadian officials said that McIver's case appeared to be more routine and unrelated to the earlier arrests.
Family friends of the woman said she had communicated that she would be held for 10 days and then returned to Canada.

How China can spy on your electronics—even in the U.S.

A counterintelligence official tells that no one should expect electronic privacy when it comes to China or Chinese-owned companies
By Brit McCandless Farmer

The U.S. government's top counterintelligence official has a stark warning for visitors to China: The Chinese government can spy on your smartphones, tablets, and computers.
Bill Evanina is director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a division of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper spoke with him recently about Chinese spying.
Cooper asked Evanina: If he were a CEO, would he bring a cell phone to China?
"Absolutely not," Evanina said in the clip above. 

"I would not take any electronics to China that I owned that has my own personal data on it, my company's data."
Evanina said American companies who do business in China are particularly at risk.
"China knows your business deal offerings before you get there," he said.
Evanina explained that, while the U.S. has independent internet service providers like Verizon and AT&T, the internet in China is operated by the government. 

That means the Chinese government can access users' information as soon as they get online.
"You click on one hyperlink, maybe you click on a news feed that you see, [and] they have the ability to get into your hardware," Evanina said. 

"And they have access to your entire phone."

It's one thing for the Chinese government to spy on internet users while they're in China; it's another for the spying to happen on U.S. soil. 

But, Evanina warns, if you visit a hotel owned by a Chinese company, your data are accessible.
"When you are in a hotel, the owner of that hotel owns all rights to the Wi-Fi in that lobby," he told Cooper in the embedded clip above.
If the Chinese government or intelligence service requests the information gleaned from that Wi-Fi, the hotel owner is then legally mandated to provide it. 

The information could include frequent flier miles, hotel membership numbers, and credit card information.
Evanina said Beijing can spy on data collected from Chinese-owned Wi-Fi connections all over, from Boston to Berlin.
"It's anywhere in the globe."

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center provides guidance on how to mitigate these counterintelligence threats as part of their "Know the Risk, Raise Your Shield" campaign, available here.
To watch Anderson Cooper's report on a former CIA officer who was recruited to sell information to China, click here.

China’s Canadian Hostages

Chinese abuse human pawns in trade and diplomatic disputes
The New York Times

Chinese police officers patrolled in front of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing this month after a Canadian was detained on suspicion of “engaging in activities that harm China’s national security.”
Three Canadian citizens being detained by China appear to have become pawns in a political impasse between the two countries and, by extension, the United States. 

They should be released immediately.
China, already an aggressive rising power known to flout the rule of law and disregard human rights, now seems to be using hostage-taking to resolve economic and diplomatic disputes.human rights
Making matters worse, Trump has chosen to get involved, seemingly playing his own games to gain leverage in bitter trade talks with China.
Trump suggested that he might intervene to secure the release of a Chinese businesswoman arrested in Canada at the request of American authorities on Dec. 1 if it would lead to a favorable trade deal with Beijing.
That reinforced the suspicions of many in China who think that the United States is using the businesswoman, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the giant Chinese technology company Huawei, as a hostage, too.
As acknowledged by the Chinese government on Thursday, Beijing is now holding a “female Canadian citizen,” identified as Sarah McIver, in addition to Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were detained earlier this month.
Although Mr. Kovrig is understood to have been seen once by a Canadian consular office, few details about the three Canadians, their conditions and the charges against them have been released. 

It is not unusual for prisoners detained by China to be held in solitary confinement with the lights on 24 hours a day and be subject to prolonged interrogation, even torture.
China’s legal system is opaque and weighted overwhelmingly in favor of the government and against the ordinary people who get caught up in it.
The Foreign Ministry said Ms. McIver had been working illegally, and it’s not clear that her case is related to that of the two others. Mr. Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat working for the International Crisis Group, a Washington nongovernmental research group, and Mr. Spavor, an entrepreneur specializing in business with North Korea, were reportedly being investigated over “activities that endanger China’s national security.”
Such moves are likely to chill the atmosphere in China for other diplomats and foreign businesspeople trying to work there.
But the detentions are less a function of the personal activities of the three Canadians than retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Meng. 

She was picked up in Vancouver at the request of the United States while she was traveling to Mexico from Hong Kong.
At a bail hearing, Canadian prosecutors said Meng was suspected of helping banks violate United States sanctions against Iran. 

She is now out on bail while awaiting extradition to the United States, a process that could take weeks or even months.
The arrests have drawn a sharp protest from the Chinese government, rattled financial markets and raised suspicions among Chinese officials that at least some Trump administration officials were trying to sabotage a trade deal.

Huawei and Meng, the daughter of the company’s founder, are part of China’s corporate elite, and her detention has brought huge domestic political pressure on Xi Jinping.
Global Times, a newspaper aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, said that the impasse could be resolved quickly by Canada’s dropping all charges against Meng. 

“It is quite simple to end the crisis between China and Canada by giving back Meng’s complete freedom,” the newspaper wrote, most likely echoing the views of top officials.
There is so far no evidence that Meng’s arrest is anything more than a part of the Trump administration’s enforcement of the sanctions regime against Iran.
But Trump recently gave doubters an opening when he suggested he would intervene with the Justice Department in the Huawei case if it would help secure a trade deal with Beijing. 

The implication was that he might trade her for the two Canadians held at the time he made that statement.
“If I think it’s good for the country, if I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made — which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security — I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Trump told Reuters in an interview.
Such interference in a judicial process would undermine the rule of law and encourage countries to detain each other’s citizens as a weapon of economic and political warfare.