Mystery surrounds the disappearance of top-ranking Chinese official Dong Jingwei, who is rumored to have defected over to US with daughter. It is also believed that the Chinese Spy chief has also handed over crucial Wuhan lab leak evidence to Joe Biden administration.
Jingwei, who was heading China's counterintelligence operations since April 2018, is the vice minister of State Security in China's Ministry of State Security, also termed Guoanbu.
Where is Dong Jingwei?
The controversy regarding Jingwei's move to US started after Spy Talk claimed the same in its article on June 17. Headlined, "High-Level Chinese Defection Rumored," the website reported that the vice minister of State Security defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.
Earlier, Red State, in its report filed on June 4 had claimed that one of the highest-ranking defectors ever to the United States from the People's Republic of China has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for months. Without naming Jingwei, the website claimed that defector has direct knowledge of special weapons programs in China, including bioweapons programs.
In yet another report on June 17, the outlet named the Chinese Spy Chief and also claimed that he has detailed information about Wuhan lab leak.
"Not only does Dong have detailed information about China's special weapons systems, the Chinese military's operation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and the Chinese government's assets and sources within the United States; Dong has extremely embarrassing and damaging information about our intelligence community and government officials in the 'terabytes of data' he's provided to the DIA," the report said.
China Claim's Dong Jingwei Still in Country
Han Lianchao, a former Chinese foreign ministry official who defected to US following 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, also spoke about Jingwei's defection. In a tweet, Lianchao claimed that Jingwei's defection was raised during the meeting that took place between US and Chinese officials in Alaska in March.
Daily Beast reported that refuting the rumors surrounding Jingwei's defection to US, China claimed that the spy chief is still in their country.
In a report released through the government sanctioned media, the Chinese authorities claimed that Jingwei appeared at a MSS seminar organized on June 18 in mainland where he "urged the country's intelligence officers" to crack down on enemy spies. However, the reports failed to provide the details about where the seminar took place or his photographs and videos.
In a communique to Spy Talk, Lianchao while revealing that Jingwei was "last seen in public in September 2020" said that the CCP has never admitted any defection of its MSS officers. "For example, Yu Qiangsheng, who was a department-level MSS official...defected to the U.S. in 1985, but China never admitted his defection, even today."
