Last Updated on December 13, 2020
Multiple top international news outlets confirm that a list of 1.95 million Chinese Communist Party members has been leaked, and in it are the names of potentially thousands of individuals who live and work in the West, including at major financial institutions, medical research and pharmaceutical companies, and foreign governments.
A document containing 1.95 million names of CCP members was provided to The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom, The Australian in Australia, De Standaard in Belgium, and a yet unnamed Swedish editor, who apparently has not published the story. Inside the list are potentially thousands of names of CCP members who have infiltrated top corporations and high levels of government across the West.
According to The Australian journalist Sharri Markson, “Some of its members – who swear a solemn oath to ‘guard Party secrets, be loyal to the Party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life…and never betray the Party’ – are understood to have secured jobs in British consulates.”
Alarmingly, Markson also says Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both currently producing large numbers of COVID-19 vaccine doses – have “employed a total of 123 party loyalists.”
“Along with the personal identifying details of 1.95 million communist party members, mostly from Shanghai, there are also the details of 79,000 communist party branches, many of them inside companies,” Markson added.
She explained, “the data was extracted from a Shanghai server by Chinese dissidents, whistleblowers, in April 2016, who have been using it for counter-intelligence purposes.”
The Daily Mail noted that there is no direct evidence these CCP members, who swear loyalty to the Communist Party and its leadership above all else, have engaged in espionage, but also notes that experts agree this would be incredibly unlikely.
“While there is no evidence that anyone on the party membership list has spied for China – and many sign up simply to boost their career prospects – experts say it defies credulity that some are not involved in espionage,” noted The Mail. “Responding to the findings, an alliance of 30 MPs last night said they would be tabling an urgent question about the issue in the Commons.”
The Australian noted that American defense companies are not immune to CCP infiltration.
“The database has also revealed CCP members working in global companies such as Boeing — which has billions of dollars in defence contracts,” noted The Australian.
Australian banking giant ANZ went as far as to claim there is nothing wrong with its employees having their own CCP branch, complete with 23 members.
“An ANZ spokesman said the bank did not interfere with its employees’ involvement in political groups.”
The Australian adds, “While there is no evidence that anyone on the party membership list has spied for the Chinese government … CCP members, of which there are 92 million, must pledge an oath that puts the party’s interests above all and ‘be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party.'”
Perhaps most shockingly, Markson notes that Chinese dissidents obtained this information in 2016, and provided it to a series of media outlets in September of this year, well before the U.S. Presidential election, over the course of which candidate Joe Biden was alleged to have massive financial connections to China through his son, Hunter Biden.
“Markson said the data was extracted from a Shanghai server by Chinese dissidents, whistleblowers, in April 2016, who have been using it for counter-intelligence purposes,” wrote Sky News. “‘It was then leaked in mid-September to the newly-formed international bi-partisan group, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China,'” said Markson. “‘and that group is made up of 150 legislators around the world.'”
“‘It was then provided to an international consortium of four media organisations, The Australian, The Sunday Mail in the UK, De Standaard in Belgium and a Swedish editor, to analyse over the past two months, and that’s what we’ve done'”.
An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Ms. Markson as a Sky News journalist. This error has since been corrected.
