A prominent lawyer in Britain, accused of trying to advance Beijing’s interests in Parliament.

在英国，一位著名律师被指控试图在议会中推进北京的利益。

An aide to a far-right politician in Germany, suspected of passing information about the inner workings of the European Parliament to China.

在德国，一名极右翼政客的助手涉嫌将欧洲议会的内部运作信息传递给中国。

A politician in Canada, accused of receiving help from the Chinese Consulate organizing busloads of international students from China to vote for him in party elections.

在加拿大，一名政界人士被指控接受中国领事馆的帮助，领馆组织一车又一车的中国留学生在政党选举中为他投票。

Even before Linda Sun, a former senior aide in the New York governor’s office, was charged this month with using her position to benefit the Chinese government, suspected cases of Chinese foreign meddling had been on the rise in Western democracies.

早在前纽约州州长办公室高级助手孙雯本月被指控利用职务之便为中国政府谋利之前，西方民主国家就已出现中国干预外国事务的疑似案件。

Allegations of Chinese political interference have also surfaced in Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium and the Netherlands in recent years.

近年来，澳大利亚、新西兰、法国、比利时和荷兰也出现了有关中国政治干预的指控。

The clandestine activity usually follows a pattern, analysts said. China recruits members of Chinese diaspora communities to infiltrate halls of power, or to silence Chinese dissidents and other critics of Beijing.

分析人士说，这种秘密活动通常遵循一定的模式。中国招募海外华人社区的成员，以渗透到权力机构，或者让中国异见人士和其他批评北京的人噤声。

Covert Chinese operations abroad have long centered on seizing industrial secrets and technology in sensitive sectors such as the military, aviation or telecommunications, with the aim of trying to erode the United States’ edge.

长期以来，中国在海外的秘密行动一直集中在获取军事、航空或电信等敏感领域的工业机密和技术，目的是试图削弱美国的优势。

What Ms. Sun is accused of doing is part of a different side of Chinese intelligence work — one that is focused on influencing political discourse so that it leans more favorably toward China’s positions on contentious issues like the status of Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing, or the repression of China’s ethnic Uyghur minority.

孙雯被指控的行为是中国情报工作的另一个方面，重点是影响政治话语，使其在有争议的问题上更倾向于中国的立场，比如有关北京声称拥有主权的自治岛屿台湾的地位，或者对中国维吾尔少数民族的镇压。

Federal prosecutors said Ms. Sun, who served as a liaison to the Asian community, blocked Taiwanese officials from having access to the governor’s office and removed references to Taiwan and Uyghurs from state communications. In return, prosecutors say, she and her husband, Chris Hu, received millions of dollars in benefits.

联邦检察官说，担任亚裔社区联络人的孙雯阻止台湾官员与州长办公室往来，并从州政府通讯中删除了有关台湾和维吾尔人的内容。检察官说，作为回报，她和丈夫胡骁获得了数以百万计美元的好处。

“These are classic tactics that we are seeing,” said Anne-Marie Brady, a political scientist at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, who specializes in Chinese influence efforts, referring to the allegations against Ms. Sun. “China is very proactive at trying to make use of overseas Chinese communities and ethnic Chinese politicians and officials to get information and shape policy.”

“这些都是我们看到的经典策略，”新西兰基督城坎特伯雷大学专门研究中国的影响力的政治学家安-玛丽·布雷迪在提到针对孙雯的指控时说。“中国非常积极地试图利用海外华人社区以及华裔政界人士和官员，从而获取信息，影响政策。”

Fanned by Geopolitical Tensions

受地缘政治紧张局势的助推

China’s attempts to interfere with Western democracies are likely to grow more acute as relations between Beijing and the West fray, Ms. Brady said. Not since the Cold War have two powers like the United States and China competed so fiercely for global influence.

布雷迪说，随着北京与西方关系的恶化，中国干涉西方民主国家的企图可能愈演愈烈。自冷战以来，还没有过哪两个大国像如今的美国和中国这样，如此激烈地争夺全球影响力。

Finding it harder to sway national governments in such an environment, the Chinese government has instead directed its attention to local, county and state governments, which are not as savvy at detecting such efforts, experts say.

专家说，中国政府发现在这种环境下很难左右外国的中央政府，于是把注意力转向地方、县和州政府，这些政府并不善于察觉此类行为。

Chinese leaders and intelligence officials may feel emboldened if their interference efforts exact little cost to Beijing, analysts say.

分析人士说，如果中国领导人和情报官员的干预行动没有给北京带来什么代价，他们可能会更加大胆。

No Chinese diplomats at the New York consulate, for example, have been expelled from the United States despite four officials being implicated as co-conspirators in the indictment against Ms. Sun and her husband. In contrast, as recently as 2019, two Chinese officials suspected of espionage were secretly expelled from the United States for driving onto a sensitive military base in Virginia.

例如，尽管在对孙雯及其丈夫的起诉中，有四名中国官员被指为同谋，但纽约领事馆的中国外交官没有被驱逐出美国。相比之下，就在2019年，两名涉嫌从事间谍活动的中国官员因开车进入弗吉尼亚州一个敏感的军事基地而被秘密驱逐出美国。

“The point we should be making about this case is not that a Chinese American allegedly committed this crime, but that the P.R.C. Government, and its senior officials, intentionally sought to place an American citizen into this position,” said Matt Turpin, former director for China at the National Security Council and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, referring to the People’s Republic of China. Mr. Turpin said the Biden administration should have declared the four diplomats included in Ms. Sun’s indictment as persona non grata.

“关于这个案子，我们应该指出的重点不是一名华裔美国人涉嫌犯下了这一罪行，而是中华人民共和国政府及其高级官员故意试图把一名美国公民置于这个位置，”前国家安全委员会中国事务主任、胡佛研究所访问研究员马特·特平说。特平说，拜登政府本应宣布孙雯案中被起诉的四名外交官为不受欢迎的人。

“Now they just look weak,” Mr. Turpin said.

“现在他们显得很弱势，”特平说。

China has said virtually nothing about Ms. Sun’s arrest, and has heavily censored discussions about it online. A spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, Mao Ning, declined to comment on the case other than to say, “We oppose malicious associations and slander against China.”

中国对孙雯被捕一事几乎只字未提，并对网上有关此事的讨论进行了严格审查。中国外交部发言人毛宁拒绝对此案发表评论，只是说，“反对污蔑抹黑中方。”

Many other countries, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, remain divided about how to deter Chinese interference. Some want law enforcement to be more aggressive. Others fear doing so will sow racism and result in racial profiling of Chinese diaspora communities.

包括澳大利亚、加拿大和新西兰在内，许多其他国家在如何遏制中国干涉的问题上仍存在分歧。一些人希望执法部门的行动更积极一些。也有人担心这样做会播下种族主义的种子，并导致对华裔社区的种族定性。

Those debates play into what Ms. Brady said were growing divisions in free societies, fueled by partisanship and populism, that China views as irrefutable signs of the West’s decline. Beijing aims to exploit those fissures, much as Russia has been doing, to weaken its geopolitical rivals.

布雷迪说，在党派之争和民粹主义的推动下，自由社会的分歧日益加剧，中国认为这是无可辩驳的西方衰落的表现，这些讨论也为分歧推波助澜。北京的目标是利用这些裂痕削弱其地缘政治对手，就像俄罗斯一直在做的那样。

“China thinks its moment is now,” Ms. Brady said. “So instead of withdrawing, they’re going harder.”

“中国认为现在正是时机，”布雷迪说。“因此，他们没有退缩，反而加码。”

Xi’s ‘Magic Weapon’

习近平的“法宝”

China’s assertive tactics reflect the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

中国的强硬策略反映了中国国家主席习近平的领导力。

Under his rule, upholding national security has required a “whole of society” mobilization. Ordinary Chinese citizens are encouraged to spy on one another and to be suspicious of foreigners and virtually everything else. Senior leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is stacked with officials with security backgrounds. China’s spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, has also raised its ambitions and public profile, going so far as to create a social media account to publicize its investigations.

在习近平治下，维护国家安全需要“全社会”的动员。普通的中国公民被鼓励互相监视，对外国人和几乎所有其他事情都持怀疑态度。中国共产党的高层领导中有很多具备安全背景的官员。中国的间谍机构国家安全部也在制定更远大的目标，提升自己的公众形象，甚至创建了一个社交媒体账户来公布其调查结果。

“It’s a bit like the Venetian Republic at its apogee, where everyone was potentially engaged in some form of covert activity to further the interests of the state,” said Nigel Inkster, the former director of operations and intelligence for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

“这有点像鼎盛时期的威尼斯共和国，每个人都可能参与某种形式的秘密活动，以促进国家的利益，”英国秘密情报局的前行动和情报主管奈杰尔·英克斯特说。

在习近平治下，维护国家安全需要“全社会”动员。

“And of course, the Chinese Communist Party was forged in a crucible of clandestinity that is still very much part of its political culture,” Mr. Inkster added, referring to the party’s emergence more than a century ago as an underground revolutionary organization.

“当然，中国共产党是在秘密的熔炉中锻造出来的的，这在很大程度上仍然是其政治文化的一部分，”英克斯特还说。他指的是一个多世纪前中共曾经作为一个地下革命组织而崛起。

China has tried to apply the same furtive strategy to its relations with the outside world. It supplements its normal diplomacy with a covert network of party members, organizations and overseas Chinese groups that work to promote China’s policies abroad. Those efforts, which Mr. Xi has called one of China’s “magic weapons,” often come under the guidance of a party organ known as the United Front Work Department.

中国试图将同样的秘密策略运用到与外部世界的关系中。除了正常的外交之外，中国还建立了一个由党员、组织和海外华人团体组成的秘密网络，致力于在海外推广中国的政策。这些努力被习近平称为中国的“法宝”之一，通常是在被称为统战部的党的机构的指导下进行。

The group, which had an estimated budget of $2.6 billion as recently as 2019, serves as the party’s intelligence agency. It often works in conjunction with China’s other spy agencies, which fall under the control of the military and the central government.

这个2019年预算估计为26亿美元的组织是中共的情报机构，经常与中国的其他间谍机构合作，这些机构都在军方和中央政府的控制之下。

In 2017, when Ms. Sun was in her early 30s, she traveled to Beijing to attend an event where she was celebrated as a Chinese youth living overseas. On that same trip, Ms. Sun made a side visit to the eastern city of Nanjing in Jiangsu province, where she was born, to meet with Wang Hua, the top official for the province’s United Front Work Department.

2017年，30岁出头的孙雯前往北京参加一个活动，在那里她作为一名生活在海外的中国青年受到赞美。在那次旅行中，孙雯还顺便访问了她出生的东部城市江苏省南京市，见到了该省统战部的最高官员王华。

During the meeting, Mr. Wang told Ms. Sun she should “be an ambassador of Sino-American friendship” and “actively promote solidarity” among Chinese migrants in New York, Chinese state media reported at the time.

据中国官方媒体当时报道，在会面期间，王华告诉孙雯，她应该“成为中美友谊的大使”，并在纽约的中国移民中“积极促进团结”。

The United Front Work Department plays prominently in other suspected cases too. In 2022, Britain’s domestic security agency, MI5, issued an alert about a British Chinese lawyer named Christine Ching Kui Lee. The notice accused Ms. Lee of acting covertly through the United Front Work Department to “cultivate relationships with influential figures in order to ensure the U.K. political landscape is favorable” to the Chinese Communist Party’s agenda. Ms. Lee has reportedly denied the allegations and has filed a lawsuit against MI5.

统战部在其他疑似案件中也发挥了重要作用。2022年，英国国内安全机构军情五处对名为李贞驹的一名英籍华裔律师发出了警告。这份通知指责李贞驹通过统战部秘密行事，“培养与有影响力人物的关系，以确保英国的政治格局有利于”中国共产党的议程。据报道，李贞驹否认了这些指控，并已对军情五处提起诉讼。

The United Front Work Department is also linked to an Australian Chinese community leader, Di Sanh “Sunny” Duong, the target of Australia’s first prosecution under a new foreign interference law; and bands of pro-Beijing supporters accused of attacking protesters last November in San Francisco when Mr. Xi attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, according to an investigation by The Washington Post.

统战部还与澳大利亚华人社区领袖杨怡生有联系，他是澳大利亚根据新的《外国干涉法》提起的第一起起诉的对象。据《华盛顿邮报》的调查，被指去年11月习近平在旧金山参加亚太经合组织峰会期间袭击抗议者的一些亲北京人士，也与统战部有关联。

Diaspora on the Firing Line

处于火线上的侨民

Mr. Xi and the party have long considered overseas Chinese populations both an asset and a risk. An estimated 60 million people of Chinese origin live outside of China, including 5.4 million in the United States, and they have been called on by Mr. Xi to help with “telling China’s story well.” They have been encouraged to “actively participate in and support” the “peaceful reunification of China,” a reference to Taiwan coming under Beijing’s control.

长期以来，习近平和中共一直认为海外华人既是一种资产，也是一种风险。据估计，有6000万华裔生活在中国境外，其中540万生活在美国，习近平呼吁他们帮助“讲好中国故事”。他们被鼓励“积极参与和支持中国的和平统一”，这是指将台湾纳入北京的控制之下。

At the same time, Mr. Xi’s supporters overseas have worked to silence and intimidate Beijing’s critics living abroad. That has grown more urgent with the expansion of Uyghur and Hong Kong Chinese diasporas escaping crackdowns on freedoms at home. Overseas Chinese student associations, for example, have played a central role in pushing back against open criticism of Beijing and its policies on college campuses around the world.

与此同时，习近平在海外的支持者也在努力压制和恐吓北京在海外的批评者。随着维吾尔和香港华人移民逃离国内对自由的镇压，这一问题变得更加紧迫。例如，海外华人学生社团在抵制世界各地大学校园对北京及其政策的公开批评方面发挥了核心作用。

China’s embrace of overseas Chinese has left many members of that community feeling like there is a target on their backs. In the United States, Chinese Americans have been obliged to defend their loyalties — with a chilling effect on scientists of Chinese descent. In 2022, the Justice Department scrapped a Trump-era initiative aimed at Chinese theft of American intellectual property. The program came under fire from civil rights groups and was criticized for failing to win many prosecutions.

中国对海外华人的接纳让该社区的许多成员觉得自己成了众矢之的。在美国，华裔美国人不得不为自己的忠诚辩护——这对华裔科学家产生了寒蝉效应。2022年，司法部停止了特朗普时代一个针对中国窃取美国知识产权的倡议项目。该项目受到民权组织的抨击，并因未能赢得许多起诉而受到批评。

Researchers say the emergence of Ms. Sun’s case risks trapping the diaspora between a suspicious American public and Beijing’s desire to drive a wedge between ethnic Chinese and their adopted homes.

研究人员说，孙雯案件的出现可能会使海外华人陷入两难，既要面对美国公众的怀疑，又要面对希望在华人和他们的第二家园之间制造隔阂的北京。

“The freedoms of Chinese diaspora communities and the health of multicultural democracies are at stake,” said Audrye Wong, an expert on Chinese foreign influence at the University of Southern California. “Beijing likes to claim to speak on behalf of all ethnic Chinese overseas, intentionally blurring the lines between Chinese nationals and those of ethnic Chinese descent who are citizens of other countries.”

“中国侨民社区的自由和多元文化民主的健康正处于危险之中，”南加州大学研究中国对外影响的专家奥德丽·黄（音）说。“北京喜欢声称自己代表所有海外华人，故意模糊中国公民和其他国家的华裔公民之间的界限。”