Former Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said the United States needs to engage in counterintelligence to combat Chinese espionage efforts, following a report by Republicans alleging the Chinese government targeted the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Republican members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee recently released a report detailing attempts by the Chinese government to recruit informants within the Federal Reserve who would trade information for money and other benefits, CNBC reported July 26.
“China's intelligence apparatuses are ravenous & will do anything to get their hands on critical information to give #Beijing a leg up,” Rogers wrote in a July 26 Tweet. “We shouldn't be surprised that they targeted the Fed, & must mount a robust counterintelligence effort.”
The Republican Senators’ report stated the Chinese government had been working to build a network of informants since at least 2013, according to CNBC. The Republicans' report did not determine whether the attempts were successful, but described “close ties” between the Fed and Chinese organizations including the People’s Bank of China, Chinese media outlets, and the Chinese Thousand Talents program.
A CNBC source said that the FBI had made 70 recommendations to the Fed for improving security measures, but the Fed only implemented one or possibly two, of the recommendations.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell disagreed with the Republicans' finding, according to CNBC.
“We are deeply troubled by what we believe to be the report’s unfair, unsubstantiated, and unverified insinuations about particular individual staff members,” Powell said, according to CNBC. “We are confident that Federal Reserve staff understand their obligations and are committed to maintaining both the confidentiality of sensitive information and the integrity of our workforce.”
Reuters reported July 26 that the Republican report was prepared by staff and "relied heavily" on information from the U.S. central bank itself going back to 2015 and an internval investigation of the "P-Network," 13 people at eight regional Fed banks whose patterns of "foreign travel, emails, details in curricula vitae, and academic backgrounds" raised concerns, according to Reuters.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the Republicans' report “a political lie with no basis in fact” and accused some U.S. politicians of “suffering from China-phobia and persecution paranoia,” Reuters reported.
