 |
    |
||
|
|||
from Ananova The state-run news agency of Communist China is moving next door to the Pentagon. The agency, Xinhua, has bought a seven-storey apartment overlooking the US Defence Headquarters and plans to turn it into its Washington news bureau. According to the Washington Post, specialists in Chinese affairs expressed surprise that the US government would allow such a move because the agency has been described in the past as a front for the Ministry of State Security, China's version of the Soviet KGB. Rich Fisher, a China authority with the Jamestown Foundation, said: "This is shades of the Soviet grab for high ground in the '70s and '80s after we let them move into their new facilities on top of Georgetown. We soon discovered lasers and other listening devices for the new Soviet residents." And author William C Tripplet II, who claimed in his book The Year of the Rat that the news agency's offices in Hong Kong were one of several "common fronts" for the Ministry of State Security, said: "They're spies. This is a techno-spy's paradise on earth to have control of your own building with a line of sight to the Pentagon. The idea the Chinese would allow us to have anything comparable is preposterous." But Jiang Liu, Xinhua's Washington bureau chief, hotly denies that his agency carries out espionage activities. He said: "It's nonsense. How can we spy on your Pentagon? Your Pentagon is very secure." |
|||
|
|||