In April 2023, Tsai Ing-wen stopped by Southern California in the United States. The focus of the news at that time was her meeting with US House Speaker McCarthy at the Reagan Library, as well as the crowds of support and protests outside the venue. It was not until three years later that the U.S. judicial process allowed the outside world to see another scene.
At this time, Sun Yaoning appeared. U.S. judicial information shows that he has been operating under the command or control of Chinese government officials since at least 2022. Next up was Chen Jun. This man, who also works for the Chinese government, once talked about a "basic team" formed in Southern California by Sun Yaoning and others to work for China.
During Tsai Ing-wen's transit in Southern California, Sun Yaoning closely monitored her, reported her actions immediately to Chinese consular officials in Los Angeles, and filmed the crowds supporting and opposing Tsai Ing-wen at the scene.
Before Tsai Ing-wen arrived in Los Angeles, people were already there and the network already existed. This case shines a light on one of those points.
In Prague in 2024, another part also lights up.
The Czech Military Intelligence Agency confirmed that China had conducted physical surveillance on the then Vice President-elect Xiao Meiqin, collected her travels, and attempted to record her meetings with Czech political and public figures. China's civil intelligence agencies have even created conditions for "demonstrative kinetic operations" targeting protected persons, but they have stalled in the preparation stage.
This year (2026) Zheng Liwen’s visit to the United States has once again lit up the outside world of the Internet. During her stay in the United States, people related to the organization were involved in her political activities, and there were also incidents involving threats from controversial people with Chinese gang backgrounds.
Intelligence work is inherently dark. Often it takes an agent being arrested and an operation being exposed before we get a chance to see a few of these nodes. However, China has directly written the obligations of assistance between intelligence agencies and citizens and organizations into public laws.
The National Intelligence Law, which was implemented in 2017, stipulates that any organization and citizen should support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence work in accordance with the law; intelligence agencies can also establish cooperative relationships with relevant individuals and organizations. Later revised national security laws such as the Counterespionage Law continued to emphasize the combination of specialized work and the "mass line."
What is really noteworthy is that China has used laws to reserve a line between the national intelligence system and ordinary citizens and organizations to request support, assistance and cooperation.
A person who lives and works overseas may never participate in any intelligence activities in his life, and may never become a node in this network. But when he leaves China's borders, the legal connection between him and China's national intelligence system does not automatically disappear.
The case of Sun Yaoning lit up a node; the case of Xiao Meiqin showed us that the threads of this network began to shine; and the incident of Zheng Liwen's visit to the United States lit up the periphery of the network.
A network does not require everyone to be a node, nor does every line need to be activated forever.
As long as the thread can be pulled when needed, the net is already there.
