by WorldTribune Staff, March 15, 2024
A decade after being revealed as a Chinese operative who became a staffer and “companion” of California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell, Fang Fang has resurfaced with a new cover story.
Did some haters besmirch her reputation, describing Fang Fang as a “honeypot” deployed by the Chinese Communist Party?
Au contraire, according to a CCP “journalist. In a March 13 post on X, Hu Xijin of the state-run Global Times introduced what he characterized as a woman of virtue to his readers, East and West.
“In espionage terminology,” according to Wikipedia, “honeypot and honey trap are terms for an operational practice involving the use of a covert agent (usually female), to create a sexual or romantic relationship to compromise a (usually male) target.”
Hu said he had lunched with Fang Fang, who told him she had presented herself as “Christine Fang” in the United States, and had been approached by the CIA and FBI who “asked her to “cooperate.
The FBI “used coercion & inducement, offering to give her U.S. citizenship and $1 million, requiring her to work for them or else they would ‘ruin her,’ ” Fang Fang told Hu.
The accepted narrative, first published in Axios, “was that the FBI gave Swalwell a defensive briefing, which is a courtesy presentation where the FBI tells an American citizen that their relationship with a foreigner has come to their attention,” Red State’s Neil W. McCabe noted.
“It is a courtesy not afforded to candidate Donald J. Trump and his associates because their reported interactions with the Russians were a hoax,” he added.
After he was briefed by the FBI, Swalwell said he severed all contact with Fang Fang. She left the U.S. in June 2015. When the GOP took control of the House in January of this year, Swalwell was kicked off the House Intelligence Committee by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Hu reported Fang Fang “had her own showdown” with the FBI at about the same time as Swalwell’s briefing.
“Three days after the FBI had a showdown with her, she fled U.S. alone and returned to China, her motherland,” Hu said. “She told me: ‘I just don’t want to betray my motherland. I don’t want to be an American spy. That’s my bottom line as a person.’ ”
In November of last year, CNN reporter John LeFever stated that Fang Fang had been killed in an airplane crash — a report Fang Fang reposted on her X account.
Smart ass @JohnLeFevre https://t.co/fQU3AqcnAE
— Christine Fang (@FangFang_ca) November 14, 2023
I had lunch with this lady today. Her name is Fang Fang, and US media called her a “suspected Chinese spy.”
🔹In 2009, she went to study in 🇺🇸and did a lot of work to promote personnel exchanges between China & US in those years.
🔹In 2015, the CIA & FBI approached her, asked… pic.twitter.com/m0AbtXYxPI— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) March 13, 2024