The arrest of a California woman accused of surveilling the son of Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te offers an unusually direct glimpse into how Chinese intelligence operations can operate far beyond conventional espionage. On October 4, the FBI arrested 34-year-old Wanying “Heather” Zhang at Los Angeles International Airport as she prepared to leave for China.
According to a federal complaint, Zhang had travelled to Seattle in 2025, photographed the home and vehicles of Lai’s son and his family, recorded their movements and transmitted photographs, videos and licence-plate information to Chinese officials. Investigators allege that she was introduced to a Chinese government contact through a former university classmate and later received instructions for the operation during a trip to China. Beijing has denied knowledge of the case and criticised what it described as the sensationalisation of alleged Chinese spies.
There is nothing particularly unusual about a government wanting information on a foreign political leader. What makes the case interesting is the route allegedly taken to get it. The target was not a military installation or a government office. It was a family member living thousands of kilometres away from Taiwan.
That detail offers a useful window into the way Chinese intelligence operations have increasingly come to operate. Recent cases in the United States and Europe show a willingness to use personal relationships, employment platforms, academic networks, diaspora communities and ordinary commercial interactions to get access to information.
Recruitment can start with an ordinary relationship
According to the FBI complaint, Zhang was introduced to a Chinese government official through a former classmate from Beijing’s University of International Relations. Investigators allege that the relationship eventually led to surveillance of Lai’s family in the United States. The operation, if the allegations are proven, did not begin with a dramatic recruitment meeting. It grew out of an existing personal connection.
A similar pattern appeared in the case of Jinchao Wei, a former US Navy sailor who was sentenced in January 2026 to more than 16 years in prison after being convicted of providing national defence information to a Chinese intelligence officer. US prosecutors said Wei was initially approached through social media by someone presenting himself as a naval enthusiast working for a Chinese shipbuilding company. The relationship developed into requests for information about the USS Essex, including photographs and technical material. Wei was eventually paid more than $12,000.
The lesson from these cases is fairly straightforward. Recruitment can begin with an interest, a professional connection or a conversation online. Once a relationship is established, the requests can become more sensitive. That makes the first stage of an operation particularly difficult to recognise. The person being approached may not see anything unusual in it.
Chinese intelligence services have also been accused of making use of something much more mundane, recruitment websites. In June 2026, the intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes countries warned that Chinese military intelligence services were using platforms including LinkedIn, Indeed and Upwork to identify people with access to sensitive government and military information. According to the warning, individuals linked to Chinese intelligence posed as recruiters, consultants or representatives of apparently legitimate companies.
The process can be surprisingly ordinary. A company advertises for a consultant with experience in defence, foreign policy or technology. Candidates submit their CVs. The recruiter now knows who has worked in a particular government department or possesses specialist knowledge. The first assignment may be perfectly legitimate. A candidate might be asked to write about China’s foreign policy or developments in the Indo-Pacific. Only later might the requests move towards information that is not publicly available. Communication can then shift to encrypted applications, while payments are made through intermediaries or cryptocurrency.
US authorities disrupted a network using similar methods in 2026. The Justice Department said 13 websites had been used to target current and former security-clearance holders, with operators allegedly using fictitious companies, stolen identities, AI-generated photographs and job platforms to make the approach appear genuine.
Academic and technology networks present a similar problem. In September 2026, Britain’s MI5 accused a Chinese state-linked organisation of funding research involving more than 100 UK academics in areas including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and covert communications. British authorities said some academics may not have known that their work could ultimately benefit Chinese intelligence capabilities. Beijing rejected the allegations.
International academic collaboration is of course not espionage, and Chinese researchers working with foreign universities are not automatically intelligence assets. Universities routinely collaborate across borders, including with Chinese institutions.
The concern arises when legitimate research relationships are deliberately used to obtain restricted information, technical expertise or access that would otherwise be difficult to acquire. This is especially significant for areas such as artificial intelligence, advanced computing and cybersecurity, where knowledge can be as valuable as a physical piece of technology.
Some of the most revealing cases have involved surveillance of Chinese dissidents, Taiwanese officials and diaspora communities rather than the theft of classified material. In the United States, Yaoning “Mike” Sun was sentenced earlier this year to four years in prison after pleading guilty to acting as an illegal Chinese agent. Prosecutors said he surveilled Taiwan’s then-president Tsai Ing-wen during her 2023 visit to California, reported her movements to Chinese officials and photographed people taking part in demonstrations around her visit.
The United Kingdom has faced similar cases. In June 2026, two men were sentenced to eight and ten years respectively after being convicted of assisting a foreign intelligence service in conducting surveillance and information gathering for China. One had previously worked for the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, which prosecutors said was used to organise and fund the activities.
These cases broaden the definition of what intelligence collection can look like. Knowing who is attending a protest, where a dissident is living or who is meeting whom may not look like a state secret. But such information can help a government monitor political opponents and communities overseas.
For Chinese authorities, this is particularly relevant because large Chinese-speaking communities live outside mainland China. Diaspora networks can provide both information and access, while individuals with connections to China can sometimes be approached more easily than complete strangers.
A wide network of methods
The recent cases do not suggest that Chinese espionage relies on one particular technique. Quite the opposite. A former sailor can be approached through social media, a job seeker can be contacted through a recruitment platform, an academic can enter a research partnership, a political activist can be followed by someone operating inside a diaspora community, and, as the Taiwan case alleges, an individual can be asked to conduct relatively simple physical surveillance of a political figure’s family.
Cyber espionage remains a major part of China’s intelligence activity as well, but human intelligence has not disappeared. Instead, the two increasingly overlap. Digital platforms are enabling the identification of potential recruits, establish relationships and provide access before a human operative ever meets a target.
The alleged surveillance of Lai’s family therefore offers more than another example of US-China tensions. It shows how far an intelligence operation can travel from its original target, and how little it may resemble the traditional image of espionage.
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