Chinese Ex-Spy Speaks Out

Original reporting by Richard Finney and Joshua Lipes
Produced by Joshua Lipes
Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han
March 21, 2009

WASHINGTON—A former Chinese spy called today for greater world attention to human rights in China, saying abuses in the country are worsening.

Speaking through an interpreter at a news conference here, former Ministry of State Security (MSS) intelligence officer Li Fengzhi said, “The improvement of human rights in China will be realized by the Chinese people themselves.”

“But help from the international community is definitely effective and is very important.”
Li said that China’s government “does all it can” to hide the truth of its abuses from other countries.

He added that world leaders should speak out more clearly to defend the Chinese people’s rights to dignity and social justice.

'Abuse' of resources
Li, now 41, said he quit the MSS and came to the United States “several years ago.”
He criticized what he called the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s “abuse” of China’s resources to “monitor, suppress, and persecute” the Chinese people.

“They include political dissidents, people who freely express themselves, spiritual groups like the Falun Gong, grassroots citizens who protest unfair treatment, unemployed workers, poor farmers who lost their land, and so on.”

“Besides the police, other state agencies—including state security departments—are all participating in these atrocities,” Li said.

Employees of China’s state security system should instead serve and protect the country, he said, adding that many MSS officers are “furious” at the Communist Party’s manipulation of their role.

“Many government departments have become closed groups that seek economic and social benefits for themselves,” Li said.

“All these benefits are actually robbed from ordinary citizens.”

Able to walk away
Li worked in an MSS office collecting information in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to a Washington Times article on March 19. He has now applied for political asylum in the United States.

Calls seeking confirmation of Li’s identity and status from the Chinese embassy in Washington went unanswered.

Also speaking to the press, California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher called Li an example of someone who was able to “walk away” from his role as an “instrument of repression.”

“No one who is in that position should think they have no alternative. We now have an example before us who knew that, yes, there is an alternative, and that is to walk away.”