https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/china-michael-ledeen/
China has long held a distinct advantage in the field of competitive intelligence, with its enormous edge in population. This enables the People’s Republic to penetrate anywhere with a substantial ethnic Chinese population bloc with consummate ease, either by offering substantial amounts of money to potential allies or threatening to crack down on reluctant collaborators.
The Chinese have an ancient drive toward ethnic unity, and they do not accept the division of their people into tribes or clans. The current dictator, Xi, regards this unity in racial terms. He believes that all Chinese share common characteristics, wherever they are born or raised. Hence Xi believes that all Chinamen owe obeisance to the rule of China itself.
It was no great surprise, then, when the United States discovered China at the heart of an espionage ring in the United Arab Emirates. The U.A.E. is one of the closest United States allies in the Middle East and has long manufactured American weapons and ammunition parts, but until recently there were only suspicions, not facts, to support the suspicions. So far as Washington could tell, the U.A.E. was unaware of the military content of the Chinese project. So far as Washington could tell, the U.A.E. was unaware of the suspicions. As the Wall Street Journal put the matter recently, the Middle East increasingly appears to be a primary ground for U.S.-Chinese competition.
The Chinese effort to penetrate the U.A.E. began like many of its previous espionage ventures, with considerable investment. They apparently hoped to expand their outreach into directly manufacturing American equipment. But their plot was discovered by American counter-espionage in time to prevent its fulfillment, and the plot was foiled.