The biggest data leak of the Chinese Communist Party members has been unravelling and the who’s who of that list is an eye-opener for the entire world regarding the espionage and intelligence network throughout the world. Among all the countries where this leak has established their existence, Afghanistan has taken the swiftest actions on nabbing the named personals and fast-tracking the investigation.
The US and other countries have accused the Chinese on the counts of espionage and allied activities for a very long time, and now this data leak establishes these beliefs as facts. In the backdrop of this data leak of 1.95 million Chinese Communist Party cadre, the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) uncovered a dense network of Chinese spies, highlighting activities of the CCP to influence the geopolitical dynamics through their presence in the region. This will have a catastrophic effect, as the US and their allies also know of this, all the Chinese designs are to replace Washington in Afghanistan as the preeminent superpower has been lost.
According to reports from The Australian, the information includes official records such as party position, birthdate, national ID number and ethnicity. It revealed that the members of China’s ruling party hold strategically important positions in many of the world’s biggest companies, including in pharmaceutical giants involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer as well as financial institutions such as HSBC.
The investigation by The Australian centred around the data leak, which was extracted from a Shanghai server in 2016 by Chinese dissidents. It has since then been widely reported in multiple media outlets and Afghanistan’s action against Chinese spies has come in around the same time.
Afghanistan’s NDS launched a crackdown and arrested a Chinese intelligence operative Li Yangyang, and another Chinese spy, Sha Hung, on the same day. Both Hung and Yangyang were arrested from their Kabul residences. The NDS also recovered arms, ammunition, and explosives, including Ketamine powder from Yangyang’s residence.
Further, as per news reports, seven more Chinese spies along with a Thai national were arrested by the NDS. All of the arrested individuals were operating as Chinese spies in Afghanistan. The same reports have mentioned that Li Yangyang and Sha Hung were kingpins of the espionage network and that both of them had been meeting commanders of Haqqani Network (HQN).
The Chinese have been in constant contact with the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani Network and the Al Qaeda and the Pakistanis have been involved in this hand and glove. This exposes China and the speedy action from the Afghan NDS is the very action that was needed to demolish all the possibility of a China-Pakistan united influence in Afghanistan. This negates all the goodwill and investment India has made as well as take the country back to the medieval period.
China has been utilizing these networks to look out for the Uyghurs runaways and their likes who can be a threat to the Chinese border areas in western regions bordering Afghanistan. The Pakistanis and Chinese in this way, are creating a well-knit network of spies and collaborators with the terrorists in the region which can ascertain their supremacy and control over the contested region after the USA left, however, with the latest revelations, the future is not so bright for Beijing anymore.