Dead Drop: September 22

SPY VS SPY: The New York Times  carried a lengthy story recently about the ongoing espionage efforts of the United States and China. Our Reader’s Digest summary: there’s a lot of spying going on. Of course, The Times doesn’t reveal its sources and methods, but it looked to us like someone was bragging to reporters Julian Barnes and Edward Wong about ‘some’ of what the U.S. Intel Community has learned about the Chinese reaction to the American reaction to Chinese espionage.  Confused yet? Sources also told the reporters that Chinese President Xi Jinping was infuriated at his own generals on learning that Beijing’s spy balloon had ‘drifted’ over the US. We don’t suspect he was unhappy about the spying – but the timing proved to be inauspicious. FBI Director Christopher Wray says the Bureau has “thousands” of opne investigations into suspected Chinese spying efforts. And apparently, the Chinese counterpart to the American G-men are also freaking out about how the U.S. is allegedly stealing their secrets. One of the biggest secrets though, is what happened to China’s defense minister General Li Shangfu who seems to have gone missing from the public eye after falling under suspicion of — well, something.

MANCHURIAN CANDIDATES? It’s not just the US that needs to keep on its toes over meddling from the Middle Kingdom.  The U.K. Conservative Party reportedly dropped two potential candidates for Parliament in the last couple of years, after Britain’s MI5 warned that they could be Chinese spies. Their names haven’t been publicly released but apparently, the allegations were serious enough – and specific enough - to get the Tories to drop them for consideration for elected office.