Is Chinese Defector Shaking Up USIC--And US Politics?

Earlier this evening commenter AmericanCardigan passed along claimed information from Hot Air that the Chinese defector who's been providing information regarding the Wuhan origins of Covid-19 is the former head of CI for the PRC's Ministry of State Security (MSS). I commented at the time--just a few hours ago: 

[The claim is] tantalizing, but towards the middle mention is made of something that jumped to my mind immediately:

"would a spy-catcher be in position to know what went on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with SARS-CoV-2?"

Never say never, reality can surprise. But there's also the matter of need to know--and a counterintelligence guy would have zero need to know about anything going on at Wuhan. Except concerns about foreign spies. Not the kind of detailed science we're hearing about.

Nevertheless, Red State--which seems to be the conduit for information about this defector--is confirming what hours ago were still rumors--Chinese Defector's Identity Confirmed, Was Top Counterintelligence Official:

RedState’s sources confirmed that the defector is, in fact, Dong [Jingwei (董经纬)], that he was in charge of counterintelligence efforts in China, and that he flew to the United States in mid-February, allegedly to visit his daughter [Dong Yang] at a university in California. When Dong landed in California he contacted DIA officials and told them about his plans to defect and the information he’d brought with him. Dong then “hid in plain sight” for about two weeks before disappearing into DIA custody.

According to Spy Talk, Dong’s name came up during the Sino-American Summit held in Alaska in March 2021:

In a tweet on Wednesday, Han [Dr. Han Lianchao, a Chinese defector], citing an unnamed source, alleged that China’s foreign minister Wang Yi and Communist Party foreign affairs boss Yang Jiechi demanded that the Americans return Dong and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken refused.

RedState’s sources say that Chinese officials did demand that the United States return Dong, but Blinken didn’t exactly refuse; at that time Blinken wasn’t aware that Dong was with the US government, the sources say, and told China that the US didn’t have Dong.

It’s only in the last three to four weeks that anyone outside DIA knew about the defector, according to RedState’s sources. Prior to that time, DIA was vetting the information provided and confronting Langley officials with what they’d learned without divulging the source. 

I have to believe that Blinken was aware that Dong had defected and simply denied it for diplomatic or national security reasons. Permission to grant asylum to a defector is normally run past all top level national security people to avoid unpleasant complications. That would also explain the two week holding pattern before Dong "disappear[ed] into DIA custody." That being the case, it's also difficult to accept that DIA was playing that sort of game with the CIA. We may never know exactly how this went down.

Red State offers a list of what Dong is said to have passed on. I'll repeat my  caveat that the items pertaining to the Wuhan labs should not have been within Dong's need to know--not as head of CI. It's not impossible--little is--but it definitely requires explanation. No doubt DIA has been trying to sort that issue out. 

Here's that list--I've bolded what might reasonably fall within a head of CI's need to know:

In addition, Dong has provided DIA with the following information:

• Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2
• Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
• Financial records detailing which exact organizations and governments funded the research on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare research
• Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
• Names of Chinese spies working in the US or attending US universities
• Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who’ve received money from the Chinese government
• Details of meetings US government officials had (perhaps unwittingly) with Chinese spies and members of Russia’s SVR
• How the Chinese government gained access to a CIA communications system, leading to the death of dozens of Chinese people who were working with the CIA

Dong also has provided DIA with copies of the contents of the hard drive on Hunter Biden’s laptop, showing the information the Chinese government has about Hunter’s pornography problem and about his (and Joe’s) business dealings with Chinese entities. Some of the files on Dong has provided shine a light on just how it was that the sale of Henniges Automotive (and their stealth technology) to Chinese military manufacturer AVIC Auto was approved.

Red State concludes with a tantalizing paragraph:

As we initially reported, DIA has high confidence in the veracity of Dong’s claims. The fact that since our original report, which was pooh-poohed by Langley apologists, the New York Times published a rare interview with Dr. Shi Zhengli (the WIV “Bat Woman”), ABC News has started an “investigation” into COVID-19 origins, and now the actual name of the defector has been published in an anti-Trump, CIA-friendly blog, demonstrates what sources told RedState today: “This defector has the rest of the intelligence community and the LEO community scared sh**less.”

We shall see.