Where China’s spies sleep in Washington
Washington, D.C. is full of open secrets. You just need to be here long enough to know where to look. And in the stone, brick, and flowered neighborhood of Kalorama, where former President Barack Obama still has a house that the Secret Service guards, there is also a home to China’s diplomats and spies.
The residence sits between the chancery of Algeria and a suicide prevention sign, just steps away from the Taft Bridge. There are no plaques or flags denoting its identity or purpose. But observers will notice that it is surrounded by a tall, black fence, with numerous cameras pointing outward and inward. The gated entryway is a little more inviting, with ginkgo leaves carved into a glass awning.
Officially, the building is home to staff of China’s embassy in Washington. In 2015, a local blog documented its construction, mentioning Dingzihu, or “nail houses,” the homes in China that people refuse to let property developers demolish. But that’s not relevant to this complex, and what happened after embassy staff moved in has not been examined.
“There are a lot of intelligence officers from China in the United States, and almost certainly many of them live in that building,” a retired FBI agent who was not authorized to speak on the matter told me. Two other former FBI agents with backgrounds in Chinese counterintelligence concurred.
Possibly divided floor by floor, they are likely members of China’s principal civilian intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), as well as the Ministry of Public Security and attachés from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). “The MSS officers would obviously be undercover as diplomats. And the PLA could potentially be uniformed, or they could be also just stationed as diplomats as well,” one of the former agents said.
On a quiet Sunday morning in September, I went to the building and took a seat at a bench across the street. Most of the inhabitants had their curtains drawn shut — to block the sun or prying eyes. A little boy was putting things outside on a high balcony. One unit had what looked like a Macy’s bag blocking its window. Directly across the street, a camera was recording every car that left the gates. And they all had diplomatic plates.
After I left, I called up the man who designed the building. “I think the fact that I had actually lived across the street meant that if anybody knew the sensitivities of the neighbors who lived near adjoining buildings, I would,” said architect Phil Esocoff. He told me about the amenities of the 130-unit building, mostly 1- to 2-bedroom dwellings, with a gym, daycare school, library, rooftop garden, and lap pool. A place nicer than many D.C. apartment buildings, at least the ones I have lived in.
I asked him about working with Chinese officials, and whether incidents like China’s spy balloon flying over the U.S. made him question the collaboration. “Looking back on it, I thought it was kind of nice to be working with another country, with a specific, ancient culture. And characteristics of the politics of any country sort of evolve,” Phil told me. “Would I have worked with them today? I don't know.”
And then he pointed me to the words of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who said, “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” That was after Nazi Germany’s Blitz ruined the House of Commons’ Chamber.
It is clear the FBI believes it is a one-way relationship, that China’s tenants shape the building. “I’d be highly surprised if the D.C. bureau wasn’t all over that with surveillance and source coverage,” one of the retired FBI agents told me. Indeed, the FBI approached some people involved in the construction of the building with their business cards. For a rainy day.
The sources were predictably vague about what more the FBI may have done or be doing, other than using facial recognition and surveillance to identify residents’ patterns of life. “The Bureau has done and can do a lot of things that you see in the movies,” one of them said. Resources ebb and flow, depending on the threat level and who is living there.
Two of the former agents explained that China’s spies in Washington would not handle U.S.-based sources who are betraying America. “It's just too dangerous to meet people here,” a U.S. official with a background in counterintelligence told me on the condition of anonymity. You won’t see a Chinese diplomat go to Lockheed Martin to steal some widget destined for the next fighter jet.
Instead, they are trying to exert influence, gather intelligence in the open source arena, and recruit people. “They're out there shaking the trees, so to speak, looking for people that they can connect with.” Some of them are what FBI agents call “hip pocket” or “trip wire” sources, occasional and informal contacts for information who may not even be secret.
But there are also parties, embassy events, and think tanks. “You spot an American diplomat or even a military person or somebody of value who has placement or access that you're interested in,” the official said. “You exchange business cards. And that's where it ends, right?” Nope. Next comes a filed contact report. “And if it's assessed that that person might be of some value to the powers that be in that particular service, they might start tracking that guy and see where they go next.” It might be the start of orchestrated approaches, and the slow process of trying to recruit begins.
Linda Sun, a former top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was recently arrested and charged with allegedly acting as an agent for the Chinese government. All those Nanjing-style salted ducks for her parents, prepared by the private chef of a Chinese consulate official — in addition to millions of dollars in kickbacks for luxury cars and properties.
But Sun wasn’t a major coup for Beijing. “That's not what you would describe as a high level penetration by any stretch,” the U.S. official said. That’s because she did not appear to have real access to classified information. “The top of the pyramid is an intelligence officer,” someone like Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a former CIA officer sentenced to 10 years in September for allegedly giving national defense information to intelligence officers in the Shanghai State Security Bureau.
Still, China’s diplomats in Washington were the beneficiaries of Sun’s efforts in 2016. According to the indictment, she made sure Cuomo attended a reception “in Washington, D.C. hosted by the PRC Embassy and the China General Chamber of Commerce – U.S.A., rather than an event hosted by Taiwan.” There are likely more overlaps. Prosecutors allege that she also obtained official proclamations for Chinese government representatives, provided unauthorized invitation letters to facilitate their travel, and arranged meetings for visiting delegations.
When I contacted China’s embassy in Washington and described the building and story I was writing about, a spokesperson asked me for more information. “Could you please tell which building you are referring to?” I wrote back, but did not receive a response to my multiple requests for comment.
So, why choose to live apart from the country that you’re working in?
There is no denying that racism and hate crimes are a problem in the United States. According to a Stop AAPI Hate report released last month, 49% of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the survey reported a hate act last year due to their race, ethnicity, or nationality. In 2020, hate crimes toward Asian people surged by nearly 150%.
But it is no coincidence that Russia’s embassy staff also live separate and apart here in the nation’s capital. (And to be fair, the U.S. State Department has also placed personnel in protected complexes in areas it considers dangerous.)
In China’s case, the retired agents believe the separation is both for officials’ protection and watch. “China in particular is really concerned with their appearance, what their people say, how they act, how the country is represented and presents itself,” one of them told me. “And they sort of manifest that worry by pretty tight scrutiny over citizens and particular diplomats when they're overseas.”
In the United States, I’m told they have a two-person rule. Two Chinese officers will formally meet an American official so that they can keep an eye on each other.
Because China’s Communist Party also doesn’t want their officials to go native. “They can be influenced by the U.S., so they absolutely want them not straying too far from the flagpole.”
FELICES Y GRACIAS DE WHERE CHICAS SPIES SLEEP IN WASHINGTON
FELICES WASHINGTON WHERE