The phrase of the hour in Washington is that the Trump Administration wants "strategic stability" with China, and it's a nice aspiration. But the Chinese Communist Party isn't behaving like a force for peace in the world, and the latest evidence is Beijing's alleged spying in the U.S. on the son of Taiwan's president.
The FBI on Sunday arrested a 34-year-old woman trying to board a flight to China at Los Angeles International Airport. The FBI said in a post on social media that Wanying Zhang, known as Heather, allegedly "surveilled the Taiwanese President's son and his family -- filming their home, vehicles, and reporting information back to PRC handlers," according to a criminal complaint.
Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te is a singular target for Beijing. He and his Democratic Progressive Party are attempting to rally the island to prepare to defend itself from Chinese aggression and to sacrifice to preserve the peaceful status quo of political and economic freedom on the island.
"Our will to unite in defending national sovereignty and safeguarding peace across the Taiwan Strait must not waver," Mr. Lai said this summer on Taiwan's outlying island Kinmen. "Peace never falls from the sky, and peace agreements that sacrifice sovereignty and involve surrender will only bring humiliation and will never bring true peace." Capitulation without fighting is Beijing's preferred result for Taiwan, and it is intruding in Taiwanese politics toward that end by backing the opposition KMT party.
Mr. Lai's son appears to be living in the U.S. and working in Washington state. No doubt the Communist Party wants to collect information about Mr. Lai's family that it could exploit to blackmail or harm the President and his party in Taiwan. And it is notable, if not a great surprise, that Beijing is brazen enough to think that it can get away with something like this in the U.S homeland.
The case is a tiny tip of the iceberg of Chinese espionage in America -- from attempts to infiltrate the U.S. military for secrets and companies for technology, to surveilling universities and Chinese dissidents in exile or Chinese students studying in the U.S.
No matter President Xi Jinping's pronouncements about steady relations with the U.S., what matters is Beijing's conduct. China acts against U.S. interests around the globe, including on American soil.
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