U.S. charges China-based Zoom executive with disrupting Tiananmen crackdown commemorations

By Jonathan Stempel

 

People take pictures in Tiananmen square following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Beijing, China September 8, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Files

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged a former China-based executive at Zoom Video Communications Inc with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown at the request of the Chinese government.

 

Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring since January 2019 to use his company's systems to censor speech, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

 

In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said the software engineer, Zoom's main liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence, helped terminate at least four video meetings in May and June, including some involving dissidents who survived the June 4, 1989, student protests.

 

Jin allegedly fabricated violations of Zoom's terms of service to justify his actions to his superiors.

 

Prosecutors also said his accomplices created fake email accounts and Zoom accounts, including in dissidents' names, to suggest meeting hosts and participants supported terrorism, violence and child pornography.

 

In a blog post, Zoom said it fired Jin for violating the San Jose, California-based company's policies, and has placed other employees on leave. It also said there was no indication that enterprise data was shared with China's government.

 

Zoom said it is cooperating with subpoenas from federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and northern California regarding its dealings with China's government, and with a separate U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena.

 

Jin is not in U.S. custody, and a lawyer for him could not be located.

 

The complaint cited many communications by Jin, including whether an account hosting a meeting with a dissident he called "a lead of such illegal political activities" could be suspended for 24 hours "to prevent subsequent huge influence on us?"

 

Jin's actions helped Chinese authorities "censor and punish U.S. users' core political speech merely for exercising their rights to free expression," Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme in Brooklyn said in a statement.

 

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Jonathan Oatis and Tom Brown)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-12-19

 

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Yet another example of Chinese agents working against the western societies they dwell in. 

 

I've personally met and worked with Chinese engineers who have immigrated and made lives in America but still openly criticize their host country's society and proclaim their allegiance to China, taking full advantage of the liberties they enjoy that are forbidden in China. 

 

It is at the point of being perilous to hire Chinese immigrants or visa holders for jobs in which they have access to any proprietary or sensitive information. 

 

The world is only too slowly waking up to the threat that China represents to freedom wherever it exists. 

 

While it is questionable that the virus was unleashed purposely by the CCP, it is indisputable that they have used the pandemic to push their propaganda and to profit from the economic disruption that followed. Its policy remains inexorable and remorseless global domination by any means possible. 

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It is long past time to crush the CCP. Hard. Sadly, the US election has made this very unlikely.