CCP Stalked Stanford Coed for Years: FBI Confirms Campus Surveillance

China - by which I mean, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which for all intents and purposes is China - is not our friend. They may be a trade partner, but they are not an ally; at best, they are a rival. At worst? An adversary.

More evidence of this surfaced Friday, when a Stanford University student testified to a House of Representatives committee about years of harassment and stalking by the Chinese Communist Party, aimed at her work as an East Asia Studies major and some of her social media comments.

A student at Stanford University opened up about the disturbing ways in which Chinese Communist Party agents allegedly stalked her, mentioning her mother, demanding she delete material on her phone, and harassing her with a blitz of calls.

Elsa Johnson, a junior majoring in East Asia studies, testified to the House Committee on Education & the Workforce on Thursday about how the chilling alleged “transnational repression” against her began and ripped Stanford for being “very reluctant to engage with me” on it.
“I’m here because I was personally targeted by a suspected agent of the Chinese Communist Party while conducting research at Stanford,” Johnson, the editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review, recalled.

The harassment began when Miss Johnson was doing some research at the Hoover Institution on "Chinese industry and military tactics", when she was contacted by someone claiming to be one Charles Chen, who invited her to take a paid trip to China. Chen also nagged her to disclose personal details of her background.

Chen had photos of Stanford University on his Instagram account, but the FBI confirmed that Chen had no connection to the institution.

Chen had photos of Stanford on his profile, giving her the initial impression that he may be tied to the elite school, but the FBI confirmed that he wasn’t actually affiliated with it.
Johnson believes Chen was acting on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security and had targeted at least 10 female students since 2020.
She began doing investigative reporting on the apparent Chinese espionage, but then it worsened.

It got worse. As she described in her testimony, Johnson confirmed that she was receiving harassing phone calls. The FBI has confirmed she was being monitored by CCP agents on the grounds of the university.

“I began receiving intimidation calls where callers would switch to Mandarin and in one case, the caller referenced my mother,” Johnson recalled. “I have also received threatening scam emails attempting to convince me to take down my reporting on this issue.”
“This fall, the FBI informed me that I am being physically monitored on Stanford’s campus by agents of the CCP and that my family is also being watched.”
She received a call from a suspected CCP operative as recently as last week.

This is a pattern of intimidation, of an American citizen, by an unfriendly nation-state.

FBI Director Patel Tells House Intel Committee They've Had to Get 'Creative' in Combatting the CCP

It's not clear from the story precisely what it was about Elsa Johnson's work that drew the attention of the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP is notorious for trying to squash criticism of China, of Chinese business practices, Chinese life, and Chinese government, and one can safely substitute "telling the truth" for "criticism." This isn't the first time something like this has happened.

China isn't our friend. Friendly nations don't harass and stalk, cyber and physically, university students of our nation. Friendly nations don't attempt to squash criticism of themselves by first bribery, then intimidation. Friendly nations just don't behave this way - and yet, China does, and we'll only see more of this in the future.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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