BIRD’S EYE SPY: A major question of international espionage was resolved peacefully recently when, after an exhaustive investigation, authorities in India released a suspect who was being held on suspicion of spying for China. The accused agent turned out to be a confused Taiwanese racing pigeon that ended up near Mumbai, nearly 3,000 miles from home. Naturally, Indian authorities (and naturalists) were suspicious because pigeons can only fly about 620 miles between stops. And there are not very many rest stops between Taiwan and India. What made officials even more suspicious was what appeared to be Chinese writing on the underside of the bird’s wings and two metal rings around one leg. (Some press accounts mention a microchip.) Unfortunately for Mumbai, investigators (and for the bird) the writing had faded and was indecipherable. But, after a lengthy probe, officials determined that the bird was not snooping and probably just got lost, hitched a ride on some passing ship and wound up in a cage in Mumbai. The Indian branch of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) got involved in the flap and eventually helped broker the bird’s release. You would think after detaining the pigeon without cause for so long, officials would buy the bird a ticket back to Taiwan…but instead they let the bird out of jail on its own recognizance to fly the friendly skies of India.
UNHEARTFELT THANKS: In his recent column in Foreign Affairs titled “Spycraft and Statecraft,” CIA Director Bill Burns gave a tour of the horizon of threats that the United States is worried about. Among them, he singled out China noting that the Agency had “committed substantially more resources toward China-related intelligence collection, operations, and analysis around the world—more than doubling the percentage of our overall budget focused on China over just the last two years.” Burns added: “We’re hiring and training more Mandarin speakers while stepping up efforts across the world to compete with China, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.” Among those who took note was Wang Wenbin, the spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry who thanked Burns “for reminding us” that “US spies are everywhere.” We’ve mentioned before how Beijing has been beating the drum trying to spin up local paranoia about American spies. Wait till they find out about the American spy pigeon program. (Just kidding.)
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