In an exclusive interview this week with The Epoch Times Australian bureau, a defecting agent of China’s state police claimed knowledge of a comprehensive spy network in Canada he estimated as numbering 1000 agents. Its goal? Not merely to steal technology or security information. It exists to monitor and repress spiritual groups that, in China, are persecuted by the government.

The statements came from Hao Fengjun, a former agent of the “610” office in China. This comes just as Australia has been reeling from another shocking revelation earlier this week by defecting former First Secretary of China’s Consulate-General in Sydney who claimed knowledge of a 1000-person Chinese spy network in Australia.

Coming Forward

Hao, 32, from Tianjin City, China, was assigned to work as a police officer at the age of 21. It was the perfect job, he thought, one that would allow him to safeguard justice, peace, and protect those who could not protect themselves.

But his perceptions began to change in 2000 when he was transferred to work in China’s “610 office”—a Gestapo-like organization created in 1999 with the purpose of monitoring and carrying out the suppression of the Falun Gong meditation practice. Among Hao’s duties was to sort and analyze reports about Falun Gong collected from Chinese spies stationed around the world. He says that most of the reports came from underground operatives in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Falun Gong is a mediation discipline with roots in traditional Chinese culture. It is based around the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. By the late 1990s the practice—one of few major spiritual practices in China that was not officially registered under the state—had attracted more followers than the communist party had members. In July 1999, China’s former president declared the practice illegal and set out to crush it, and the 610 office was charged with the task. Sources say that over 2500 practitioners have died due to mistreatment in police custody since that time.

At first, Hao says, he didn’t mind the job at the 610 office. But in October, 2000, he witnessed a colleague in the 610 office violently beat a female Falun Gong practitioner with an iron bar, leaving her black and blue and with two lacerations more than 20cm long. He began to understand that as a 610 officer, he wouldn’t be safeguarding justice anymore.

With his conscience weighing heavily on him, Hao looked for a way out, and it came in February of this year. He travelled to Australia guised as a tourist, bringing with him smuggled reports from the 610 office documenting the surveillance of Falun Gong and other religious groups persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.

He began to apply for asylum, but fearing for the safety of his family members in China, he dared not speak out publicly about what he knew. Hao found work in Australia and was living quietly under a bridging visa. Until June 4th, that is, when Chen Yonglin—a diplomat at Sydney’s Chinese consulate who was in charge of monitoring Falun Gong practitioners, dissidents and democracy activists in Australia—publicly defected.

Chen made headlines across Australia when he said that China has a network of roughly 1000 spies operating in the country—a claim the Chinese government quickly denied. He also spoke out against China’s persecution of Falun Gong, saying practitioners are innocent and shouldn’t be facing torture.

Hao’s courage was ignited.

“Chen Yonglin is a diplomat and he stepped forward to speak clearly on behalf of Falun Gong and democratic activists. I think I am a policeman so I have a responsibility to do the same,” he told The Epoch Times on Monday.

Hao stepped forward to back Chen’s claims of the spy network, elaborating in great depth about the inner workings of China’s overseas spy rings whose reports he had spent years sorting through.

The Making of China's Spy Network

“I’m not surprised about what Mr. Chen said about there being 1000 spies in Australia,” says Hao.

“I think this figure is accurate. I know this. Also, I know that the Chinese spies are not only in the Chinese consulates and embassy but also in businesses and overseas Chinese organizations.”

According to Hao, spies from China are delegated and paid for by individual police units. Every municipality has its own spy budget, he says, making it difficult to calculate exactly how much China spends to send spies overseas. Hao did, however, tell The Epoch Times that the city of Shanghai spends roughly 7 million Yuan (CDN $1 million) annually; the city of Tianjin spends about 250,000 (CDN $38,000), and Beijing spends between six and seven million Yuan (CDN $900k) annually to send spies overseas.

Hao describes three general classes of Chinese spies:

1) Special agents—agents sent overseas by the National Security Bureau who often pose as businessmen
2) Secret Cadres—those who have recently graduated from the police academy
3) Working relations—businessmen sent to collect information from overseas business, technology, or military circles

He adds that some spies have also infiltrated overseas groups, including Falun Gong, Christian organizations, and advocates for democracy in China.

In addition to reporting information back to mainland China, the spies also make efforts to interfere in the livelihoods of some foreign citizens.

“I think outside of China that persecution of Falun Gong practitioners exists,” Hao says. “They tell […] Chinese community organizations not to hire or give jobs to Falun Gong practitioners.”

Secret Operatives in Canada

In his time with the 610 office, Hao dealt with hundreds of correspondents from spies stationed overseas who were collecting information on Falun Gong (and later other religious groups including overseas Christian organizations). The reports came primarily from the Pacific Rim—the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Hao says that at least a few of the reports are based on recordings of private conversations between Falun Gong practitioners in Canada. He estimates that Canada has a similar number of spies as Australia--roughly one thousand.

No Surprise for Falun Gong

Lucy Zhou, a volunteer spokesperson for Falun Gong in Ottawa, wasn’t surprised to hear all this. She says that Falun Gong practitioners have known China was sending agents to monitor and harass them since the persecution began in 1999.

Zhou lists incidents from across Canada where Falun Gong followers and sympathizers were photographed or videotaped by Chinese agents. Some later received threatening phone calls or discovered their names were on Chinese government blacklists.

Last February in Calgary, the visa office at the Chinese consulate reportedly told a Chinese woman that the consulate had a list of every Falun Gong practitioner in the city and no one could obtain a visa if they continued to practice Falun Gong. Similar claims were made by the Embassy in Ottawa in 2003.

An Australian Falun Gong practitioner, David Liang, was shot shortly after arriving in Johannesburg South Africa last year where he planned to file a lawsuit against two visiting Chinese officials involved in the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

Liang’s car had been vandalized shortly before leaving for South Africa and his travel companion said he had received threatening phone calls. Liang says he has “no doubt” that the Chinese officials had hired gunmen to kill him and that they knew about his plans from spies in Australia.

Rob Anders, MP for Calgary West, has followed the story of Falun Gong since 1999 when China began the crackdown. He says he’s met Falun Gong practitioners who were spied on, had business deals sabotaged, and were even physically assaulted by Chinese special agents.

“It’s just so obvious there’s a spy network going on,” says Anders.

"It’s serious. Canada, Australia, and the United States all need to take these things much more seriously than they have been…it needs to be dealt with publicly.”

In major metropolitan cities in the United States, some Falun Gong practitioners say that their phones have been tapped or their apartments broken into by Chinese secret agents. In 2002, one man in Los Angeles confessed that he had been sent to North America to spy on Falun Gong, but had a change of heart once he got came to better understand the practice.

The United States Congress passed a concurrent resolution in September 2004, condemning China’s actions of spying on and harassing Americans who practice Falun Gong, and listed instances of breaking and entering as well as assault and battery.

Just the Beginning

Just a day after the news broke out about Chen's defection, Chinese democracy activists were at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa with a megaphone encouraging Embassy staffers to quit the Communist Party.

"The first secretary of the Chinese Consulate in Australia bravely abandoned the CCP," said Shi Xingjian, an Ottawa-based democratic activist.

"The CCP persecutes diplomats too. Remember the Cultural Revolution? You should learn the truth and do more good deeds for the Chinese people, not bad deeds for the CCP!"

Shi’s wish just might come true.

“I think there must be many people like me,” said Hao, when asked if he thought there were others entertaining thoughts of defection.

“Some of my colleagues have the same thought as mine but not everyone is willing to step forward to do this. They are doing things that they really don’t want to do.”

It sure wasn’t what Chen Yonglin wanted to do. The 37-year old said in his letter to Australia’s Immigration department that his hair was turning white and that he was haunted by nightmares because of the stress caused by persecuting Falun Gong.

"If I return to China, I would probably be assigned to handle the Falun Gong
issue because I have worked on this for four years,” said Chen. “I would rather die than have to do this.”

For those Chinese authorities who continue to carry out persecution orders, Anders suggests they rethink their participation.

“I would tell them to take a serious, introspective look at what they’re doing to their fellow citizens…and at what it’s doing to them. I think that when you are part of this system of torture and persecution and whatnot that they are, that kills something inside them as well.”