TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The FBI has warned some US lawmakers in a secret briefing that the Chinese Communist Party is creating fake stories to antagonize them because of their anti-China views and support for Taiwan, according to two US officials familiar with the matter.
In one of the stories, the CCP claims the politicians are accepting bribes from the Taiwan government in exchange for taking a pro-Taiwan stance, NBC reported.
“The CCP is trying to undermine congressional support for Taiwan’s democracy, to paint it as corrupt and not in the American public interest,” one of the two US officials told NBC. “It will not work.”
The US officials said the CCP plan has not been implemented yet, but the FBI held the briefing as a preemptive tactic to share information and stop the smear campaign.
Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇), a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, said in a statement: "The report is entirely fabricated, and the Chinese government has never had any plan to smear these lawmakers. As for whether they have accepted bribes from Taiwan, it should be investigated by the relevant authorities in the United States and has nothing to do with China."
The development follows the arrests of two Chinese nationals in New York last April for allegedly establishing an overseas police station on behalf of the Chinese government. The pair were charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government and obstructing justice by erasing evidence of communications with a Chinese Ministry of Public Security official, according to the US Department of Justice.