Persona Non Grata: P.L.A. General Xiong Guangkai

(Washington, D.C.): Just when it seemed the Clinton-Gore Administration had
exhausted all
possible ways of abasing the United States in a comprehensive kow-tow to Communist China,
along comes another appalling initiative. The next one appears likely to be the official visit to
this country next month by People’s Liberation Army General Xiong Guangkai, Deputy Chief of
Staff for Intelligence.

William Triplett and Ed Timperlake — best-selling authors whose newly released and
superb
book, Red Dragon Rising, documents the growing strategic and military threat posed
by China —
helpfully provided in an op.ed. in yesterday’s Washington Times an annotated
curriculum vitae
for General Xiong. It offers ample justification for considering this dangerous man to be
persona non grata and certainly not a suitable “strategic partner” for renewed
military-to-military contacts.

WHO IS XIONG GUANGKAI?

By Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II

The Washington Times, 15 November 1999

In a recent issue, the Far Eastern Economic Review, reports that Gen. Xiong Guangkai,
Deputy
Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), will be visiting
Washington in December. American military attaches at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing brag that
the Xiong visit will restart the military-to-military relationship between the United States and the
People’s Republic of China (PRC).

For a whole host of reasons, Gen. Xiong’s visit represents both a challenge and an
opportunity to
the Republicans in Congress. First, as the chief spymaster of China, Gen.
Xiong inherited and
then perfected the most successful espionage operation against America in our nation’s history.
He knows all the answers to questions raised in the Cox-Dicks report of earlier this year because
they occurred at his direction.

Gen. Xiong, age 60, has been in the PLA’s intelligence service since he was a teen-ager. In
the
1960s and 1970s, he honed his craft as a military spy operating out of the PRC Embassy in Bonn.
Now at the pinnacle of his career, all the PLA intelligence operations targeted on the United
States lead to him. Under the usual information-sharing arrangement, he also would know of the
significant intelligence operations run by China’s KGB, the Ministry of State Security. He would
have a wide range of knowledge about the Loral-Hughes case, the theft of all of our nuclear
weapons secrets from the National Labs, and the most recent McDonnell-Douglas case, just to
name a few of his successes.

Gen. Xiong also was responsible for the successful effort to funnel illegal
campaign
contributions to the Clinton-Gore re-election effort in 1996. PLA Gen. Ji Shengde told
Johnny Chung, “We like your President and we want him re-elected.” Since Gen. Ji worked for
Gen. Xiong, the “we” probably referred to him. At least some of Gen. Ji’s $ 300,000 made its
way through Mr. Chung to the Democratic National Committee. Another of Gen. Xiong’s
military spies, Lt. Col. Liu Chaoying bragged to Mr. Chung of other conduits of money from
PLA intelligence into Clinton-Gore. Certainly Rep. Dan Burton, Indiana Republican, and Sen.
Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican, who chaired hearings into campaign contributions,
would be interested in those details.

Earlier this year, Gen. Xiong turned up at an important meeting with the North
Koreans. The
relationship between the PRC and North Korea is like “lips and teeth,” he declared. We know
now the PRC and the North Koreans are in various joint ventures to sell weapons of mass
destruction, and the missiles that deliver them, to terrorist nations in the Middle East. Given the
mafia-like way that the PRC government is run, it would be unusual if Gen. Xiong or his family
did not have a financial stake in that sort of trade. Sen. Thad Cochran, Mississippi Republican,
and chairman of the Senate Anti-Proliferation Subcommittee, might like to ask about it.

Gen. Xiong is most famous for his threat to incinerate Los Angeles with nuclear
destruction
if the United States should come to the aid of democratic Taiwan. That’s of interest to the entire
Congress, given the overwhelming support for the Taiwan security legislation now making its
way through the House. It’s only heightened by the dramatic demonstration of mobile ICBMs at
the 50th anniversary of communism in China. With the DF-31 and DF-41 together capable of
reaching any city in America, his threat no longer is false bravado. It is real and in a crisis can be
deadly.

What is less well known is Gen. Xiong’s role at Tiananmen. In 1989, he
was the head of the
“Er Bu,” the “Second Department,” the PLA’s military intelligence agency. This is the
equivalent of the GRU from Soviet days. His agents ran a series of provocation operations
against the students, mostly efforts to plant weapons on them in order to excuse the ensuing
massacre. In 1996, Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican, held a hearing when one of the
major Tiananmen Square generals came to visit President Clinton. Gen. Xiong would make a
choice target for serious human-rights hearings in view of the PLA’s continuing role as the prop
holding up communism in China.

We have noted that the general has a very high energy level. These days, one of his major
roles
is handling the military-to-military relationship with the United States, a very controversial
program. Legislation sponsored by Sen. Bob Smith, New Hampshire Republican, and House
Republican Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, to restrict the program was passed by the
Congress and signed into law by a very reluctant President Clinton this fall.

The Xiong visit should be seen for what it is: another in-your-face operation by Mr. Clinton
and
Mr. Gore. Gen. Xiong hits every hot button issue in the China game-nuclear espionage, illegal
campaign funding of Clinton-Gore in 1996, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
Taiwan, human rights and the Tiananmen Square massacre, finally the military-to-military
giveaway that Congress loathes. It’s going to be interesting to see if the Republicans (and the
Democrats) in Congress step up to the plate on this one and greet Gen. Xiong with a subpoena.

Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II are the authors of “Red Dragon Rising,”
published by Regnery, 1999.