The Sixth Bureau Episode 6: Nothing Is Holy

Summary

Podcast Summary: Big Take – The Sixth Bureau, Episode 6: “Nothing Is Holy”
Release Date: March 20, 2026

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Overview

The final episode of "The Sixth Bureau" podcast series, hosted by Jordan Robertson and Drake Bennett of Bloomberg, concludes their deep dive into Chinese industrial espionage by following the fallout from the dramatic arrest, prosecution, and eventual prisoner swap of Xu Yanjun—a Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) officer. The episode intricately explores the reverberating impact of Xu’s case on China’s spycraft, U.S.-China relations, personal stories of those caught in the web, and ultimately, what might lie ahead in the shadow war for technological dominance. The title “Nothing Is Holy” refers to the ways ordinary human frailties sabotage even the most guarded secret operations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Final Attempt to Contact Xu Yanjun

• [02:54–06:32]
  • Jordan, Drake, and their team attempt to call Xu and his associates from Bloomberg’s offices with the help of a Mandarin-speaking colleague.
  • A number linked to Xu is finally answered. The person on the line responds cautiously, refusing to confirm his identity and hangs up after learning the caller is a Bloomberg reporter.
  • The experience is unsettling, adding to the sense of intrigue and ambiguity surrounding Xu’s fate.

“He didn’t confirm. Neither deny or confirm who he is. Just asked, repeating the question, who are you?”
— Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague [06:21]

2. Ripple Effects of Xu’s Arrest

• [07:04–09:49]
  • The investigation led to a series of arrests and prosecutions of Chinese nationals affiliated with the MSS, like engineering grad student Ji Chaoqun in Chicago, a Chinese hacker picked up at LAX, and an Apple engineer caught for trade secrets theft.
  • The “China Initiative” (launched by the Justice Department) targeted academia but resulted in controversy and accusations of ethnic profiling, eventually leading to its demise under the Biden administration.

“It all looked to a lot of people like ethnic profiling, and the Biden administration would formally end the program.”
— Drake Bennett [10:31]

3. The “Three-Year Pause” in Chinese Espionage

• [11:04–14:07]
  • Xu’s arrest led the MSS to “pause” its operations for about three years, out of fear that all its U.S.-focused operations were compromised.
  • Alan Kohler (former FBI counterintelligence head) explains that this pause allowed U.S. agencies to regroup, as the Chinese government tried to figure out how the breach occurred.
  • This pause only ended after Xu’s trial revealed U.S. investigative techniques, prompting Chinese services to adapt and improve.

“They understood exactly what was happening, and they did what we do. Right. You get smart, you understand what the adversaries are doing, you adapt, and you get better.”
— Alan Kohler [14:07]

4. The Prisoner Swap

• [15:32–20:54]
  • The hosts reveal that Xu, Ji Chaoqun, and another Chinese prisoner were quietly pardoned and swapped for three Americans imprisoned in China.
  • Multiple U.S. officials and prosecutors reflect on the inevitability of such deals but have mixed feelings—some see it as strategic leverage; others worry it undermines the justice system.
  • Art Cummings, former GE security head, and James Olson, former CIA, express disappointment and anger, concerned it sets a problematic precedent.

“This trial, all that hard work, this brilliant operation that Bradley Hope pulled off had no lasting impact.”
— James Olson [19:54]

5. Personal Fallout: Ji Chaoqun’s Story

• [21:46–24:55]
  • Ji, who built a life in the U.S., maintained meaningful friendships, most notably with Naomi Lyman, who recounts her shock upon learning of Ji’s arrest and their ongoing connection after his return to China.
  • Naomi’s personal perspective highlights the human complexity behind tales of espionage.

“He would sit next to people on the train who just looked lonely, and he would just talk to them, just in a loving way. Just, how’s your day going?”
— Naomi Lyman [22:23]

6. Xu’s Likely Fate in China

• [25:12–26:13]
  • Xu’s future is much murkier. Matt McKenzie, U.S. prosecutor, speculates that while Xu was loyal, he brought embarrassment and operational failure to MSS and cannot be fully trusted again—“he’s kind of incompetent.”
  • The discussion illustrates the often grim fates of exposed spies, even when swapped home.

7. Espionage as Human Failure – “Nothing Is Holy”

• [26:29–28:59]
  • Alan Kohler reads a favorite John Le Carré passage, drawing a parallel between aging spies and the temptation to record secrets—a flaw that doomed Xu.
  • The series’ theme: no amount of tradecraft can outsmart ordinary human laziness or the pressure of aging.

“If people execute flawless tradecraft, they will never be caught. But because they're people, they will always be caught.”
— Alan Kohler [28:46]

8. The Shifting Tech Race & Mutual Suspicion

• [31:33–35:51]
  • The gap between U.S. and Chinese technology is narrowing fast, with examples like BYD’s electric cars overtaking expectations and sparking U.S. regulatory backlash (e.g., 100% tariffs).
  • China, now a tech powerhouse, has started worrying about its own secrets being stolen—urging caution among top AI researchers and cracking down on cross-border IP flows.
  • Juliana Liu, Bloomberg columnist, notes the role reversal and “mirror” dynamic emerging.

“Maybe for the first time in kind of modern history, the shoe’s on the other foot.”
— Juliana Liu [34:18]

9. Ideological Boundaries and the “Code” of Spying

• [35:51–39:26]
  • U.S. officials repeatedly claim that while the U.S. spies for national security, it does not engage in industrial espionage for commercial gain—unlike China, which they accuse of blurring those lines.
  • The hosts raise the question: if America lost its preeminence, would it abandon these principles?
  • James Olson concedes it’s "conceivable" the U.S. might change its approach if it slips from superpower status.

“I think it’s conceivable that if the United States lost its preeminent position in the world, that we would be more offensive in our intelligence efforts..."
— James Olson [39:26]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s easy to laugh at Xu’s carelessness and his mistakes, but we all do stupid stuff, don’t we? We all cut corners. Most of the time, we get away with it.”
  — Drake Bennett [26:17]

• “A man must have a code.”
  — Referencing "The Wire" [36:39]

• “We in the CIA do not do industrial espionage. We do not steal foreign technologies.”
  — James Olson [37:08]

• “Why wouldn’t the US start sending out spies to try to steal them, especially if it had a new motive to catch up?”
  — Jordan Robertson [38:13]

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Timeline of Critical Segments

| Timestamp | Key Segment | Notes | |------------|----------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:54–05:17| Attempt to contact Xu | Calls to Xu’s number, unsettling exchange | | 07:04–09:49| Fallout from Xu’s Arrest | Series of arrests, the China Initiative | | 11:04–14:07| Three-year Pause in MSS Espionage | Kohler explains China’s operational “freeze” | | 15:32–20:54| Prisoner Swap & Reactions | Xu, Ji, and another swapped for Americans; mixed U.S. reactions | | 21:46–24:55| Ji Chaoqun’s Personal Fallout | Naomi Lyman’s perspective, ongoing contact post-release | | 26:29–28:59| “Nothing Is Holy” – Le Carré Passage | The human flaws at the heart of espionage | | 31:33–35:51| The Shifting Tech Race | Juliana Liu on China’s leap, the new IP paranoia, BYD and EVs | | 35:51–39:26| Espionage “Code” & American Exceptionalism | Boundaries of U.S. spycraft, would America’s “code” shift out of necessity? |

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Tone & Language

The hosts maintain a narrative tone rich in suspense, curiosity, and investigative rigor. Personal stories and direct quotes from interviewees—law enforcement, friends, and espionage experts—bring warmth, skepticism, irony, and even lament to the often dry topic of national security. The episode’s reflective close, referencing literature and asking hard questions about the future, leaves listeners lingering on the complexity of morals and motives in statecraft.

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Final Reflection

The climactic conclusion of “The Sixth Bureau” revisits the series’ central themes: the limits of secrecy, the universality of human error, and the twin-edged sword of technological ambition. With China ascendant and the U.S. facing uncomfortable questions of ethics, the podcast draws no easy lines—only the reminder that in the shadows, “nothing is holy.”

Transcript

[Drake Bennett]

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[IBM Representative]

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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News hey everybody, this

[Jordan Robertson]

is the last episode of our show. If you haven't listened to the first five, you probably want to go back and start from the beginning. If you are up to speed. Thank you so much for listening. We really hope you're enjoying it. We've had such a blast working on this series.

[Drake Bennett]

That's actually true. And if you like the show, tell your friends about it, share it. That's how the show will continue to grow. And of course rating and reviewing it helps too. So again, thanks. Here's the final act. Let me just Last tree engine. It might actually be this 11391 yeah two three yep.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

This tree engine.

[Drake Bennett]

Tree engine. Definitely have butterflies a little bit.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Yeah. This is an empty number is invalid.

[Drake Bennett]

Jordan and I are in Bloomberg's New York headquarters. It's late. Late enough that it's mid morning in Nanjing. We're here because we're trying to call Xu Yanjun and we're with our producer and a Mandarin speaking colleague to help us with translation.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

The third one is invalid.

[Drake Bennett]

We have a bunch of phone numbers we found in the court documents for Xu and all his aliases, as well as a bunch of his associates. 388-2316. We've been going down the list making these calls and getting nowhere for over an hour.

[Jordan Robertson]

And then something funny happens with one of the shoe numbers. Instead of getting a recording that says the line's been disconnected, this number does something different. It rings a few times and then nothing. Almost as if someone's picked up and is just sitting there without saying anything. It's just blank space. Silence.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

That's weird.

[Drake Bennett]

That was weird.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Yeah. There's a little bit of silence between the sounds.

[Drake Bennett]

Weird. It's getting weirder.

[Jordan Robertson]

Then the call ends. Whoever's on the other end hangs up. So we call again and the same thing happens. A few rings, then nothing. There's 26 seconds of silence. And then finally our colleague steps in and says,

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

So we just call a number that is associated with Xu Yanjun. Somebody pick up the phone. And I asked him if he's Xu Yanjun. He. He said, who are you? I repeated, I'm looking for Xuanjing. And he said again, who are you? Then I said, I'm a reporter from Bloomberg News. He hung up on me.

[Drake Bennett]

What?

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Wow.

[Jordan Robertson]

Well, I'll tell you what he didn't say is I'm not shu yanshu.

[Drake Bennett]

Yeah.

[Alan Kohler]

Yeah.

[Jordan Robertson]

From Bloomberg News and iHeart podcasts, this is the Sixth Bureau. I'm Jordan Robertson.

[Drake Bennett]

And I'm Drake Bennett. I did not expect that at all.

[Jordan Robertson]

I didn't either. I don't think any of us did. I don't think any of us. We don't know that that was shoe on the phone, but it was his number and it sounded like him. We've heard Xu's voice. You have too. Plus taking a call from an unknown U.S. number, which was actually attached to a burner phone Bloomberg gave us solely for the purpose of making these calls. Seems a little like something he'd do. And our colleague mentioned another thing.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

He has a little bit local accent, I assume from Jiangsu area.

[Jordan Robertson]

Jiangsu province is where she's from.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

He's a little bit guarded, like he didn't confirm. Neither deny or confirm who he is. Just asked, repeating the question, who are you?

[Jordan Robertson]

Of course, this wasn't the first time we'd tried to reach him. We'd written him two letters while he was incarcerated, and he'd responded by telling his Lawyers to tell us that he didn't want to talk to us or ever hear from us again. But by the time we called his number from our offices, Xu wasn't in an American prison anymore. He wasn't even in America. We'll get back to that. First, we need to catch you up on the fallout from his arrest, which profoundly shook the mss.

[Drake Bennett]

One place we can trace the ripple effects of Xu's arrest is Chicago, with Ji Qiao Chun, the engineering grad student who still texted his parents for grocery shopping tips.

[Jordan Robertson]

Dad is good Sea cucumber available now.

[Drake Bennett]

The boy spy who texted pictures of his MSS cache to his friends.

[Jordan Robertson]

Fucker. You even dare to photograph this?

[Alan Kohler]

Photograph this sneakily Delete after you see it.

[Drake Bennett]

And who worked as a spotter for Xu. Yan Jun, Are you there?

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

I have a favor to ask.

[Jordan Robertson]

I'm here. Please go ahead, Brother Xu.

[Drake Bennett]

Which is why an undercover FBI agent approached him on the street in Chicago after Hsu was arrested. The undercover told Gee that with Hsu arrested, he was his new MSS handler. And Ji believed him. The two of them met three times in that same Hyatt hotel room. Each time, the FBI learned more about what Gee was doing. Until they decided they'd Learned enough. On September 25, 2018, Gee and the undercover's final meeting ended abruptly. FBI. Turn around. Turn around. Up, up, up. Hand on the wall. Two FBI agents, very much not undercover, burst into the hotel room. That panicked voice yelling, wait, wait. That's actually the undercover, still in character as an MSS handler, getting busted as part of the plan. He's handcuffed and led out of the room. And then the two FBI agents turned to their real target. Ji. So what's your name? Chokun. Ji Chaogun. Yes. Am I saying that right? Yes. Okay, so you want a lawyer? Am I in trouble or. Well, that's what we hope to talk about. Yeah, he was. He was arrested and went on trial in the fall of 2022, roughly a year after Xu, and was convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign government and making a material false statement to the army. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

[Jordan Robertson]

Xi wasn't the only one in this roundup. There were other arrests and prosecutions of people connected to Xu. A Chinese hacker who worked with the 6th Bureau was apprehended as he arrived in Los Angeles for a cybersecurity conference. An engineer working for Apple's self driving car effort was arrested and charged with theft of trade secrets. He was one of the engineers Xu and Ji had done a background check on Xu's boss. Jia Rong and other MSS colleagues were indicted in absentia for a series of cyber attacks on aviation companies. And Arthur Gao, the Honeywell engineer who Xu secretly recorded when he came to give a talk in Nanjing. He was indicted, too. He pled guilty to export control violations and testified at Xu's trial.

[Drake Bennett]

These cases were like tracers, marking the outlines of networks that had previously been hidden. But innocent people would also get caught up in that hunt. A few weeks after Xu's extradition in late 2018, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced what he called the China Initiative, a Justice Department campaign to counter trade secret theft.

[Jordan Robertson]

We are here today to say enough is enough. We're not going to take it anymore.

[Drake Bennett]

It's unacceptable.

[Jordan Robertson]

It's time for China to join the community of lawful nations. International trade has been good for China, but cheating must stop.

[Drake Bennett]

That led to a wave of aggressive, controversial prosecutions. Most of the defendants were ethnically Chinese academics working at American research institutions. And in most instances, there was no evidence that anyone was actually sharing trade secrets. As a result, many of the charges were for paperwork violations, like failing to report ties to Chinese universities. Some of the cases were so weak that prosecutors would end up dropping the charges. It all looked to a lot of people like ethnic profiling, and the Biden administration would formally end the program.

[Art Cummings]

We have heard concerns from the civil rights community that the China Initiative has fueled a narrative of intolerance and bias. To many, that narrative suggests that the Justice Department treats people from China or of Chinese descent differently.

[Jordan Robertson]

But as we know, Xu was an actual spy. And when he was taken off the chessboard, it had ramifications. Perhaps the most striking one was what stopped happening right after Xu's arrest. The FBI noticed that the MSS industrial espionage machine essentially shut down.

[Alan Kohler]

The arrest of Zhu, scared them into stopping what they were doing, essentially where they had to basically make this large countrywide operational pause to try and figure out where or how Zhu got caught.

[Jordan Robertson]

Alan Kohler, the FBI's former head of

[Alan Kohler]

counterintelligence, they didn't want to put any other sources at risk. They didn't want to put any more intelligence officers at risk. So they just stopped to try and figure out what was happening. And that was incredibly beneficial to us because China wasn't luring Americans out of. Out of the US to meet them overseas anymore. At the time, that was our biggest unknown risk. We just didn't know how much and how often this was happening, but we knew it stopped in the aftermath of Xu.

[Jordan Robertson]

From the US Government's perspective, what was China doing in those moments of pause? What actually happens?

[Alan Kohler]

They're probably doing exactly the same thing that we would do whenever we experience a compromise. Right? And I can tell you, I've been in the room when that's happened a lot, where let's say you have 10 operations that you launch throughout the US and overseas, and one of them dramatically goes south. We would stop what we're doing for fear of putting those other operations at risk until we figured out what the heck happened in this one operation that blew up in our faces. And China was absolutely doing that. They didn't know where the hole was, and so therefore, they had to pause until they could try and figure it out.

[Jordan Robertson]

Allen says the MSS hit pause for roughly three years as it struggled to pinpoint what exactly had gone wrong. That's a really long time to shut down an intelligence effort. And it stayed that way until Xu's trial.

[Alan Kohler]

The United States government had to show everything that they did in the case, and China is able to understand. Okay, here's our weak spots. Here is the person that lured him to Belgium. We see how that happened. Okay, Xu, you shouldn't have recorded yourself, and you shouldn't have put all this personal information into the device that you took that the FBI got access to.

[Drake Bennett]

Note to self. Do not record secret spy stuff on iPhone that you get arrested with.

[Jordan Robertson]

Lol.

[Alan Kohler]

This is where we know this case went sideways. We're just not going to make those mistakes again.

[Jordan Robertson]

So they learn from the trial, too. China learns from the trial as well.

[Alan Kohler]

Oh, sure, and they may drag the process out to find out exactly what the US Government has, how they got it, what the sourcing is, et cetera. And in the zoo case, it was just that. On steroids.

[Jordan Robertson]

So the pause ended and the machine started back up.

[Alan Kohler]

You know, green light. Go back at them again. They learned. They understood exactly what was happening, and they did what we do. Right. You get smart, you understand what the adversaries are doing, you adapt, and you get better.

[Drake Bennett]

So, Jordan, you and I published a magazine feature about Xu's case back in 2022 for Bloomberg Businessweek.

[Jordan Robertson]

Yeah, we did.

[Drake Bennett]

But even after the story came out, we couldn't stop thinking about it or talking about it or reporting on it. And we kept finding more and more great stuff, like Ji Chao Chun's not in the prince story at all. Right.

[Jordan Robertson]

I mean, we learned about him after the fact.

[Drake Bennett]

Yeah. And Xu's phone calls. We had transcripts of the recordings when he wrote The Prince story. But it wasn't until after that that we got the actual audio, which.

[Jordan Robertson]

Which, of course sparked the idea for this podcast.

[Drake Bennett]

Right. And while we were working on the pitch for the pod, like, late 2024, you got a tip.

[Jordan Robertson]

Yeah, it was quite the tip. So I get a call one day, kind of late November, from a source who suggested that I look at the Bureau of Prisons website. And they said, you should look up Xu Yanjun there. And like so many of these calls, it was, like, unnecessarily cryptic. I'm like, what am I gonna. What am I gonna see? This man got sentenced to 20 years. Like, I don't need to see it again. I know what happened. And so I go and look and, like, he's gone. Xu Yanjun was not there. He was not in the system. And at first I was like, did Shu escape? Did he break out of prison?

[Drake Bennett]

It wouldn't be the first time he tried that.

[Jordan Robertson]

Yeah, like, I thought maybe this time he'd actually succeeded. So I called the source back and the person was like, no, he didn't escape. He's been swapped.

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[Drake Bennett]

Xu Yanjun had been swapped, pardoned by President Biden, released from prison and sent back to China. So had Ji Qiao Chun and a third Chinese man convicted on unrelated charges. In exchange, three American citizens in Chinese prisons had been released and sent home

[Jordan Robertson]

to the U.S. it was a prisoner swap. And it's how real life spy stories often end.

[Drake Bennett]

It was bound to happen. It's part of the deal making.

[Jordan Robertson]

Federal prosecutor Tim Mangan.

[Alan Kohler]

Even if we hadn't gotten a chance

[Drake Bennett]

to indict him and we just caught a spy, this is what happens with spies.

[Naomi Lyman]

I don't think anyone on our team was shocked.

[Jordan Robertson]

Federal prosecutor Emily Glatfelter.

[Naomi Lyman]

You're always surprised to hear it at that moment, but it wasn't a shock that overall to think that this was something that might occur because he was such a valuable asset to the Chinese government.

[Alan Kohler]

I always thought it was inevitable that he was going to be traded and it was just a matter of when. Alan Kohler again, what the case team did is they gave the United States a chip that we could play in the world stage. We put Xu in jail, we arrested his network, we learned a whole lot about how China targets Americans. We were able to tell the world how it happens. And then we actually had this intelligence officer in prison that we gave our president the opportunity to bargain with someone inside China to get Americans back. And to me that's, that's worth letting him out of jail every time.

[Drake Bennett]

But not everyone feels that way, even other spies.

[James Olson]

I was disappointed. No, I was more than disappointed. I was angry.

[Drake Bennett]

James Olson, former CIA clandestine officer and counterintelligence chief by releasing Hsu and his

[James Olson]

co op dji, I felt that much of their work was for naught by letting him go free. This trial, all that hard work, this brilliant operation that Bradley Hope pulled off had no lasting impact.

[Drake Bennett]

And some people aren't sure exactly what to think. Yeah, I was unhappy with that. Art Cummings, former head of security at ge, he was very unhappy with that.

[Jordan Robertson]

Why is that?

[Art Cummings]

I just think it sets the wrong message.

[Drake Bennett]

Again, you Know, but again, I'm contradicting myself a little bit because he was actually a representative of their government. So I don't like the fact that it was kind of a paper tiger moment. Yeah, he made all that effort, and now, bye, bye, he's back. Kind of like, wow, really? But at the same time, is he a loyal Chinese citizen? I mean, yeah, I always draw the equivalence. A CIA officer is lured to Europe and then extradited to a country and

[Art Cummings]

then put in prison.

[Drake Bennett]

We would be out of our minds. Art's saying if the situation was reversed, we would do everything we could to get that CIA officer back. And that's basically what China says they did. In a press conference at the time. Right after the swap, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign affairs made their message clear. Through the unremitting efforts of the Chinese government, three Chinese citizens wrongfully detained by the US have returned safely to China. It once again shows that never, ever will China give up on its citizens. The motherland will always have their back.

[Jordan Robertson]

So once you're back in the motherland, what does that actually look like? Well, when it comes to G, we know a little. He had a life in the us he made personal connections, and he hasn't totally abandoned them.

[Naomi Lyman]

He just told me about how he was quote, unquote, rescued from the China US Prisoner swap.

[Jordan Robertson]

Naomi Lyman met G Chouchun in Chicago when he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This isn't something he seems to have discussed much with either his real or fake MSS handlers, but it became a very important part of his American life, and so was Naomi.

[Naomi Lyman]

I only ever saw him being gentle and kind. He would sit next to people on the train who just looked lonely, and he would just talk to them, just in a loving way. Just, how's your day going? Where are you headed to?

[Jordan Robertson]

They were really close friends. G was at Naomi's wedding and was the only person she invited into the Mormon Temple for the ceremony.

[Naomi Lyman]

My best friends weren't there. I had nobody in there with me that I chose except for Chow Chun.

[Jordan Robertson]

A month after the wedding, Naomi got a message from a reporter asking for comment on G's arrest. That's how she found out about it.

[Naomi Lyman]

I got this message asking to be interviewed because they could see that I knew him really well, based off of Facebook, and I was just shocked and really confused. I went onto Google and I just typed in his name and then arrest and started reading article after article after article that had been published about him. And watching all the videos. And I honestly was so devastated.

[Jordan Robertson]

She put those feelings into a long letter and sent it to G while he was in jail awaiting trial.

[Naomi Lyman]

And they did not let him read it because I didn't write it on white paper. And so they sent it back to me. And this was, it was like a 10 page letter that I poured my heart out to him in. And, and I was so distraught I didn't even rewrite it and resend it to him.

[Jordan Robertson]

But she kept wondering how he was doing.

[Naomi Lyman]

Every once in a while, I don't know, maybe every other two or three months I would go and google his name.

[Jordan Robertson]

And then six years later, still doing her googling, something new finally pops up.

[Naomi Lyman]

I saw that he had been released in a prisoner exchange program. And it was really just a week later that he messaged me saying hi and that he knew that I sent him a letter but he never got to see it because it wasn't on that white paper and thank you for writing me a letter even though I never got to read it.

[Jordan Robertson]

He also told her a little bit about what he was up to.

[Naomi Lyman]

Let's see, I'll look at his messages right now. He said, I'm doing great. I'm in China now, just enjoying my time with my family. We'll go to work in July, which we know where he's going to be working at because we know who rescued him.

[IBM Representative]

So

[Naomi Lyman]

I did ask, I did ask, I was like, where are you going to be working at? Just to see if I would get an answer. But there was no respons.

[Drake Bennett]

As for Xu, we know even less. He didn't live in the us he didn't make friends here. And there's really no way of knowing what happened to him when he went back to China. But we can speculate.

[Matt McKenzie]

I don't know. On the one hand, he was loyal. You know, he could have come knocking on our door and saying, hey, I'll tell you everything. I know he didn't.

[Drake Bennett]

Former federal prosecutor Matt McKenzie.

[Matt McKenzie]

But on the other hand, he was a catastrophic failure. An epic, epic failure for them. The amount of information that we were able to gather about how China actually operates is mind boggling. And it's all because he was sloppy and greedy and we were able to catch him. And now the whole world can see how they operate because we put it all out in a trial. So I think you have to put him in a back room, give him a, a decent paying job, but don't trust him with anything because you know, he, he can't Be trusted. He's kind of incompetent.

[Jordan Robertson]

No iPhones, right?

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Yeah.

[Drake Bennett]

It's easy to laugh at Shu's carelessness and his mistakes, but we all do stupid stuff, don't we? We all cut corners. Most of the time, we get away with it. And most of the time, Hsu did, too.

[Alan Kohler]

Spies are people and people are lazy. It's absolutely a truth throughout all espionage cases. And I've got this little thing that I keep on me.

[Drake Bennett]

At this point in our interview with Alan, he pulls out a piece of paper.

[Alan Kohler]

I don't know if you're a George Smiley fan.

[Drake Bennett]

It's a quote from Smiley's People, a John Le Carre novel that's part of the same trilogy as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Alan keeps this quote with him the way someone else might keep a scrap of scripture or a pocket constitution for the longest time.

[Alan Kohler]

I would have a copy of the book, which is behind me on my shelf, dog eared. And I was just in a Marriott at one point, and I took a piece of Marriott stationary and I wrote this quote down. This is the kind of a counterintelligence geek that I am.

[Drake Bennett]

He keeps it close as a kind of reminder, a warning.

[Alan Kohler]

So this is a quote from Smiley's People. It's referring about a truth throughout all espionage cases. Is it okay if I just share this part with you?

[Jordan Robertson]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Alan Kohler]

He knew that sometimes old spies, even the best of them, were a little like old lovers.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

September 20th, noon.

[Drake Bennett]

Peach.

[Alan Kohler]

As age crept up on them, they began to cheat out of fear that their powers were deserting them.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Teacher Gao, maybe you can head back first. Thank you so much.

[Alan Kohler]

They pretended they had it all in the memory. But in secret, they were hanging on to their virility. In secret, they wrote it down, often in some homemade code, which, if they had only known it, could be unbuttoned in hours or minutes by anyone who knew the game.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

June 22nd, flew to Paris.

[Alan Kohler]

Names and addresses of contacts, sub agents.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

June 11, met G. Chaoqing.

[Alan Kohler]

Nothing was holy. Routines, times and places of meetings.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Let's try our best to meet in Europe.

[Alan Kohler]

Work names, phone numbers.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

John rejected. Meal receipts. Today I will have my revenge.

[Alan Kohler]

Even safe combinations written out as Social Security numbers and birthdays.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Send me the name of the coffee shop. We're here.

[Alan Kohler]

In his time, Smiley had seen entire networks put at risk that way because one agent no longer dared to trust his head.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

I put a USB drive in the eyeglass box in. In the middle of the bookcase. If something happens, someone will come to you and tell you the password.

[Alan Kohler]

And to me, that is exactly what espionage is. If people execute flawless tradecraft, they will never be caught. But because they're people, they will always be caught.

[Producer/Mandarin-speaking Colleague]

Your Honor, I'm just an ordinary Chinese citizen who knows nothing about politics, nor do I know anything about secrets. I stand by my innocence. Thank you.

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[Jordan Robertson]

China is still behind the US when it comes to aviation technology, GE's jet engine is still the most advanced out there. China's engines are five or 10 or 15 years behind. But they're probably not going to stay there. I mean, there used to be similar gaps in other sectors, like electric vehicles, but not anymore.

[Juliana Liu]

Yeah. So 20 years ago, things were very different for China.

[Jordan Robertson]

This is Juliana Liu, a global business columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She's been covering China for over two decades.

[Juliana Liu]

Twenty years ago, nobody expected Chinese EVs to be the world beaters that they are today. I think it wasn't even that long ago when Elon Musk was laughing.

[Drake Bennett]

And as you're familiar with byd, the ramping up production of their electric vehicles. Warren Buffett owns 10% stake in that. Why do you laugh? Trying to compete. Why do you laugh? Have you seen their car? I have.

[Juliana Liu]

Like literally laughing at BYD during a Bloomberg TV interview.

[Drake Bennett]

Tell me why you're laughing. You don't see them at all as a competitor? No. Why is that? I mean, they offer a lower price point. I don't. I don't think they have a great product.

[Jordan Robertson]

Elon Musk may have considered the Chinese electric carmaker BYD something to laugh about back in 2011 when he gave that interview. But BYD is now one of the fastest growing car companies in history and ranks among the biggest automakers in the world. They're not a joke, they're a threat. Which is why the US Government has made it basically impossible to sell them in the US. The Biden administration slapped a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, so most Americans have never even seen one in person.

[Drake Bennett]

Yeah, I mean, I haven't and I

[Jordan Robertson]

have, but that's because I live in London, where there are plenty of BYDs driving around. China's getting so good at so many things quickly, EVs, AI drones, that they're starting to have their own fears that their tech will get poached.

[Juliana Liu]

In the case of byd, it had kind of long expressed a desire to open up a factory in Mexico. And about a year ago, there were reports that that permission was being delayed by the Chinese side because Beijing was concerned that this technology would be kind of diffused out of Mexico and into the US into the so called wrong hands.

[Jordan Robertson]

Recently, the Chinese government has started taking steps to guard intellectual property in other realms, like AI. The government now discourages top Chinese AI researchers from traveling abroad, warning that they might potentially be targeted in some way. It's also recently launched an investigation into a deal between Meta and The Chinese founded AI firm Manus for potentially putting Chinese tech secrets at risk.

[Juliana Liu]

Maybe for the first time in kind of modern history, the shoe's on the other foot. It's not a very comfortable position to be in, but at least U.S. officials are being pretty honest with you about how they see the current situation.

[Drake Bennett]

And good morning. Today the Select Committee on China meets to examine the rise of China's auto

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industry and what it means for America's

[Drake Bennett]

economy and national security.

[Jordan Robertson]

The release of Deep Seq AI from a Chinese company should be a wake up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing

[Alan Kohler]

to win because we have.

[Drake Bennett]

In just five years, China has gone

[Jordan Robertson]

from a minor exporter to the world's

[Drake Bennett]

largest auto exporter at below market prices that U.S. and allied automakers cannot match. They've already exceeded our military capabilities. They have more planes, more ships, more submarines, more missiles, more bombs, more soldiers. They have the ability to build ships 230 times faster than we do. They have an air force that outnumbers ours. Previously was a technological gap that we

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were able to depend on.

[Drake Bennett]

That technology gap has evaporated.

[Juliana Liu]

And I would imagine the rationale is not that different from the Chinese side. Right, the rationale that kind of supported the kinds of acts that you're reporting about. It's a mirror, right? It plays as a mirror to what China has allegedly been doing and what the west may be willing to do.

[Drake Bennett]

But what is the west willing to do? Everyone we interviewed for this series has insisted over and over again that we don't do what China does. The US government does not steal trade secrets. Companies might spy on other companies, but our intelligence services do not spy on foreign firms to steal their tech.

[Matt McKenzie]

Governments spy on other governments. Our governments should not be stealing using the state apparatus to steal trade secrets for commercial purposes. And it's just, it's outside the boundaries.

[Drake Bennett]

Can I just ask why?

[Matt McKenzie]

It's kind of like Omar on the wire, you know, you gotta have a

[Drake Bennett]

code bird trifling, basically killer everyday working man and all. I mean, don't get it twisted. I do some dirt too, but I ain't never put my gun on nobody who wasn't in the game.

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A man must have a code.

[Drake Bennett]

Oh, no doubt.

[Matt McKenzie]

And the code is we don't steal trade secrets for commercial purposes. We're here to spy on each other for the needs of our state. Everyone has our state purposes that we're going to be conducting espionage. But there are certain lines we don't cross. You don't see the NSA out there stealing secrets to help Coke or Pepsi. It's just not how we do things. And the Chinese just blur all those lines.

[James Olson]

We in the CIA do not do industrial espionage. We do not steal foreign technologies. That's not our job. We don't do that. So that is a major distinction. In fact, many, many foreign intelligence services, friend and foe alike, do have that responsibility of acquiring technology that they cannot get in any other way. But no, we don't do that.

[Jordan Robertson]

At least not since we became the world's dominant superpower. But if that changed, would we. What lines would we blur? Well, we're already blurring plenty of them. The government is taking ownership stakes in different companies, inserting itself into the private sector in ways it hasn't before. The leader of Venezuela was taken from his capital city and is now sitting in a Brooklyn prison. The FBI and DOJ are being used to investigate the President's perceived political enemies. So, honestly, what's so precious about trade secrets? Why wouldn't the US start sending out spies to try to steal them, especially if it had a new motive to catch up?

[Drake Bennett]

And let's not forget, the US has done it before. Earlier in the series, we mentioned how the United States, back when it was a very young nation, paid people to smuggle loom designs out of Great Britain, the global industrial power of that age. The question is, would we do something like that again today? We wanted to ask our espionage expert, James Olson, who spent three decades in the CIA, the one who took the stand against Xu, who was crushed by the news of the swap, who you just heard say, we in the CIA

[James Olson]

do not do industrial espionage.

[Drake Bennett]

We wanted to know what James thought about this, about whether the US's official approach, its code, if you will, could change. The last thing I wanted to ask is just whether this insistence on our spying being sort of defensive rather than offensive is a luxury of the fact that we're the sort of preeminent superpower in the world. Do you think there's any evidence or likelihood that if the United States were to lose that position, whether there's any possibility we'd change that stance, whether we would resort to more offensive spying in the way that China and other countries, too?

[James Olson]

I think it's conceivable that if the United States lost its preeminent position in the world, that we would be more offensive in our intelligence efforts to strengthen ourselves at the expense of our adversaries, rather than the primarily defensive mode that I think we're in now. That's conceivable to me. I hope that day never comes.

[Jordan Robertson]

A huge thanks to everyone who made this possible. Our production team, editors, engineers, composers, translators, voice actors, voice coaches, fact checkers, the many people we interviewed on and off the record, and everyone at Bloomberg and beyond who contributed to and supported this project with their advice, suggestions and time and again.

[Drake Bennett]

Please share, rate and review our show if you liked it. If you're still listening then you should also check out our homepage where we have two print pieces and a video documentary that we make made about the boy spy Ji Qiao chun. That'[e-mail] the 6th Bureau.

[Jordan Robertson]

Thanks so much for listening.

[Drake Bennett]

Bye.

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