The Defense Department is downplaying experiences that Chinese nationals posing as vacationers have tried to breach U.S. army bases and different authorities installations greater than 100 instances lately.
The alleged gatecrashers ranged from divers noticed within the water close to a rocket launch web site in Florida to different Chinese nationalists found crossing right into a U.S. army missile vary in New Mexico. Some had been required to report what they noticed again to the Chinese authorities, in accordance to the Wall Street Journal, citing officers aware of the follow.
On Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman declined to touch upon any particular incidents, however Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder insisted that it stays a prime precedence, saying the army’s prevention measures soak up all kinds of potential threats, together with tried spying by adversaries.
“The [Defense Department] has conducted several base security reviews since 2018, some of which included support by our interagency partners,” Gen. Ryder instructed reporters on the Pentagon. “The results of those reviews will continue to inform changes to protective measures at our bases.”
The Defense Department tracks greater than 10,000 incidents a day of what it calls “controlled turnarounds” of individuals at entrance gates to U.S. army bases.
“These individuals are people who are not authorized to access and depart the installations,” Gen. Ryder stated. “These incidents are generally low-level and, so far, none of them indicated espionage.”
In some circumstances, the explanation could be as innocuous as a confused motorist who pulls as much as a army gate and is turned away. A driver who will get previous the gate however is in any other case not suspected of illicit exercise will typically be cited and escorted off the bottom, Gen. Ryder stated.
“A very small number of these ‘controlled turnarounds’ warrant additional checks and even a smaller number warrant an investigation,” Gen. Ryder stated.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, instructed the state-controlled Global Times information web site that the spying claims had been “malicious fabrications.”
The nationalist information web site mocked the Wall Street Journal report, including, “Anyone with critical thinking skills can easily tell that the U.S. smear is riddled with loopholes.”
Content Source: www.washingtontimes.com