Chinese Covert Operations: Why So Bold in South Korea? The Real Reason America Began Its Investigation

The number of fake news sites targeting South Korea has surged from an initial 38 to over 200. These sites attempted to gain credibility by impersonating the Korea Digital News Association, and three entities, including a Chinese media promotion company, were identified by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) as their operators. These sites reportedly build trust by utilizing local news before disseminating articles from Chinese state-run media.

The status of fake news organizations targeting South Korea was first identified by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto in Canada. Citizen Lab's report confirmed 17 sites targeting South Korea, revealing that they were operated by a Shenzhen-based Chinese public relations agency. These organizations aimed to influence public opinion by building trust through local news before distributing articles from Chinese state-run media.

In its report, Citizen Lab assessed that the impact of these fake media operations was negligible due to their low visitor numbers. However, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) noted that articles from these sites were widely circulated via social media, using different language to describe their influence. As of now, there is no confirmed evidence that the Chinese government directly intervened in operating these fake media outlets.

The U.S. Congress has directed the Department of Defense to investigate the influence of the Chinese Communist Party within South Korea. This was included as a special item of interest in the House and Senate National Defense Authorization Act reports, marking the first instance where South Korea was specifically named among allies for such an investigation. This was a document in which the U.S. Congress ordered its Department of Defense to go to South Korea and count the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.

Among 48 investigation items related to foreign affairs, only three concerned Chinese influence, and among these, South Korea was the sole country explicitly named. While other items encompassed entire regions, South Korea was designated as a specific nation. This is unprecedented in the history of the annual National Defense Authorization Act reports, and it is notable that only South Korea was singled out, not Japan, the Philippines, or Australia.

Two months have passed since the U.S. Congress announced its directive for an investigation into Chinese influence in South Korea, yet our government has not publicly stated any position. Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Ministry of National Defense has issued official comments on the matter, making it difficult to ascertain our government's stance.

The highest priority in the U.S. Congress's investigation request was not our politics or public opinion, but rather to identify who is associated with U.S. Forces Korea personnel. The objective is not to target South Korea, but to ascertain the scope of China's activities within South Korea and the potential threat this poses to USFK security.

The U.S. identifies 'people,' not equipment, as the primary means of intelligence gathering, emphasizing the risks of information obtained through relationships. The first line of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act report mentioned people, not equipment, suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department is a key organization for expanding external influence.

The United Front Work Department is one of Mao Zedong's 'three magic weapons' for revolution, serving as an official organization of the Chinese Communist Party and a department for exerting external influence. Through an organizational restructuring in 2018, this department came to oversee overseas Chinese and religious affairs, with one department now responsible for ethnic, religious, and overseas Chinese matters. The United Front Work Department does not operate offices under its own name in other countries but instead acts through various front organizations with different names.

In October 2020, the U.S. Department of State designated the U.S. branch of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification as a foreign mission. In its Federal Register notice, the State Department cited the Council's control by the United Front Work Department as the basis for this designation. A South Korean branch of the same organization also exists, as confirmed by domestic state-run research institution data.

According to international human rights group reports, 102 Chinese overseas secret police stations have been confirmed to be operating in 53 countries. This information was not obtained through infiltration or leaked internal documents, but rather from analyzing public announcements released by Chinese public security authorities and state-run media. Already, 14 governments, including the Netherlands, have initiated investigations into these secret police stations or taken steps to close them down.

The U.S. severely punishes operators of New York's secret police stations, applying charges such as acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years. However, South Korean prosecutors merely applied charges of violating business registration to a Chinese restaurant operator in South Korea. This is due to the lack of legal grounds under current South Korean law to directly punish foreign surveillance activities, and the U.S. courts named those individuals as agents of a foreign government, not spies.

A bill related to the registration of foreign agents was introduced but was automatically scrapped without even being discussed, due to the expiration of the National Assembly's term. A re-introduced bill has also been stalled in the National Assembly for two years. In contrast, the U.S. has operated a foreign agent registration system since 1938 to transparently manage related activities. However, that bill was automatically scrapped as the National Assembly's term ended without even concluding discussions.

The newly established foreign espionage law has a lower punishment level compared to the existing enemy espionage law, raising questions about its effectiveness. The existing enemy espionage law carries penalties of death, life imprisonment, or seven years or more, whereas the newly created provision stipulates three years or more of imprisonment. It seems the threshold has been lowered, and the penalty has also been reduced, effectively opening the door wider. However, as the law has not yet been implemented, actual application cases and their predictions remain uncertain.

The U.S. House Armed Services Committee explicitly directed the Secretary of Defense to assess the extent of Chinese Communist Party infiltration in South Korea and report by December 1 of this year. The Senate also set a reporting deadline of May 1, 2027. This marks the first instance of a U.S. bill including a provision for investigating South Korea, meaning a foreign document now contains a specific date by which the extent of Chinese Communist Party presence within South Korea must be identified and reported.

Following the release of the U.S. document, changes were confirmed in Chinese facilities within the Yellow Sea Provisional Measures Zone. In the middle of the Yellow Sea, there is a zone that both South Korea and China eventually agreed to share, unable to definitively determine whose waters they were. On January 27 of this year, China officially confirmed the relocation of one of its administrative facilities there. Notably, it was the very facility that had a helipad and high-performance radar, raising the most concern about its potential military use. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it was moved 500 meters, while other facilities remained.

The hidden intention of the U.S. Congressional report encompasses not only South Korea's security but also U.S. commercial interests. The third aspect is completely different. It's not a request to block China, but a request to help grow American companies. The report includes content demanding opportunities for American companies to grow and replace China, as well as provisions for supply chain management and assessing the impact on USFK intelligence security. It's as if the request to remove China from our land and investigate what should fill that void is also written in the same item. Furthermore, clauses regarding stable troop operations for the U.S. military and budget control related to command authority are also specified, indicating that the U.S. is pursuing both its security and economic interests simultaneously.

The phenomenon of the U.S.-led investigation into South Korea's internal situation is summarized as 'the reality of measuring our house with someone else's ruler.' The U.S. has stepped forward to measure its own troop stability and share, not South Korea's, and our house just happened to be in the way. This is a result of our failure over the past 20 years to establish clear standards and response systems regarding China's influence, leading to an inefficient situation where we must confirm our internal affairs through foreign documents.