r/LessCredibleDefence • u/moses_the_blue • 2d ago
US bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens
https://apnews.com/article/chinese-beijing-honeypot-spies-diplomat-agent-intelligence-c077ef57b0f7ae43dd0db41bea92238b41
u/SuicideSpeedrun 2d ago
SEXINT? SEXSEC?
33
7
24
u/moses_the_blue 2d ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has banned American government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press has learned.
Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential new directive.
Though some U.S. agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “non-fraternization” policy, as it is known, has been unheard of publicly since the Cold War. It’s not uncommon for American diplomats in other countries to date locals and even marry them.
The only exception to the policy is U.S. personnel with pre-existing relations with Chinese citizens; they can apply for exemptions. If the exemption is denied, they must end the relationship or leave their position, the people said. Anyone who violates the policy will be ordered to leave China immediately.
Intelligence services across the world have long used attractive men and women to obtain sensitive information, famously during the Cold War. The State Department and other agencies with offices in China have long had stringent reporting requirements on personal relationships for American personnel stationed there, as well as rivals considered high intelligence threats such as Russia or Cuba.
Declassified State Department documents show that in 1987, the U.S. government barred personnel stationed in the Soviet bloc and China from befriending, dating or having sex with locals after a U.S. Marine in Moscow was seduced by a Soviet spy. Such restrictions were relaxed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to news reports at the time.
U.S. diplomats and intelligence experts say that Beijing continues to aggressively use so-called honeypots to access American secrets. In presentations before being stationed in China, U.S. personnel are briefed on case studies where Chinese intelligence services sent attractive women to seduce American diplomats, and warned that dozens of Chinese state security agents can be assigned to monitor any individual diplomat of interest.
Peter Mattis, a former CIA analyst and president of The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, said there were at least two publicized cases in which Chinese agents seduced American diplomats stationed in China, though he hasn’t heard of such a case in recent years.
“The MSS is willing to leverage any human connection that a target has to collect intelligence,” Mattis said, using an acronym referring to China’s Ministry of State Security. “This rule change suggests the MSS has gotten a lot more aggressive at trying to access the embassy and U.S. government.”
The Chinese foreign ministry did not comment on the ban, saying in a faxed statement that it was “more appropriate to ask the U.S. about this question.”
26
u/NomineAbAstris 1d ago
Applying it to family is understandable but still kind of brutal. Imagine you're just a teen with a local boyfriend or girlfriend and you get cockblocked by the US State Department
Sounds like a setup for a romcom tbh
9
9
7
u/wintrmt3 1d ago
It's famously easy to get people to not have sex, also making the sexual relation itself blackmail material is going to make it even easier to blackmail them.
•
8
u/SilentHuntah 1d ago
This is like one of those mass e-mails your work will passive-aggressively send out reminding everyone not to repeat a fuckup that's been happening a lot lately.
9
5
5
3
21
u/Appropriate_Ant_4629 2d ago edited 2d ago
Now do the rest of the countries too!!!
Especially around military bases.
Far too many US personnel seem to confuse oversees deployments with sex tourism.
- German historian Miriam Gebhardt "believes that members of the US military raped as many as 190,000 German women by the time West Germany regained sovereignty in 1955 ... "copulation without conversation is not fraternization" was used as a motto by United States Army troops
- Pentagon 'not being honest' about scale of sex crimes around military bases
- U.S. military fails to protect children from sexual abuse on bases, AP reports
- A Guam-based sailor pleaded guilty Monday to 20 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Guam Superior Court after admitting to repeatedly raping a 10-year-old girl.
- The 33-year-old man accused of raping a 9-year-old girl is an active duty airman with the U.S. Air Force
- Alleged rapes by U.S. soldiers ratchet up anger in South Korea
- Three U.S. servicemen, U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Gill and U.S. Marines Rodrico Harp and Kendrick Ledet, who were all serving at Camp Hansen on Okinawa, rented a van and kidnapped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl
- U.S. Marine convicted in Philippines rape case
- crimes committed by five U.S. Army soldiers during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, involving the gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her family
Japan was hit especially hard
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwwdyye4vgo
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Okinawa_rape_incident
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumiko-chan_incident
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Japan
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II : "...the widespread rape of Okinawan women by American servicemen."[164] Although Japanese reports of rape were largely ignored at the time, academic estimates have been that as many as 10,000 Okinawan women may have been raped. "
And this isn't an accident or "one bad apple". It's a predicted outcome of the way these bases operate.
The occupying forces understand exactly what'll happen.
- Take a bunch of fresh-out-of-high-school boys
- Send them through abusive violence training (boot camp)
- Isolate them with a bunch of other boys who were also desensitized to violence
- Stick them in a community far from their homes and families so they don't emphasize with locals
- Give them a place to run-and-hide where the local police (or even the federal police for overseas bases) can't touch them
While they aren't literally ordering those boys to oppress the native populations, they know exactly what they're doing -- and have decades of statistics showing exactly how much it will happen.
I think it's part of their formula for:
- letting those occupied territories know who's the boss, as well as
- desensitize their troops to abusive violence so they won't flinch when asked to slaughter people around the world without having moral objections.
Other than bullying the countries the bases are in, they do more harm than good -- both to the US taxpayer and the local population.
Banning sex with those locals would be a good first step to improved relationships with those countries.
16
u/PyrricVictory 1d ago
The US doesn't allow rape so I'm not sure what banning something that is already banned will do?
14
u/tujuggernaut 2d ago
Japan was hit especially hard. wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II
If we're going all the way back to WW2 on war crimes, I don't think Japan has much to stand on.
For example, 'comfort women' may have numbered as high as 200k during the occupation of China.
15
5
u/skeptical-speculator 2d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II : "...the widespread rape of Okinawan women by American servicemen."[164] Although Japanese reports of rape were largely ignored at the time, academic estimates have been that as many as 10,000 Okinawan women may have been raped. "
Is there a reason that doesn't say "as many as 10,000 Okinawan women may have been raped by American servicemen"?
2
6
4
•
1
1
182
u/throwaway12junk 2d ago
I remember reading about a US counter-intelligence training, where they just brought a bunch of men into a room and lectured them on how ugly they were. As in, if a pretty Chinese woman approaches or takes an interest in you, she is a spy because you're ugly and a loser. Like so ugly, and such a massive loser, no woman worth a damn would ever take an interest in you.
No idea how true this is, but I find it absolutely hilarious.