A Colonel of Truth in All This?

It has faded from our memories now, but back in 2001, before 9/11, the BBC reported that a very senior Chinese intelligence officer defected to the US in NYC:

[...]
The BBC has learned that the officer is Xu Junping, a senior colonel.

A terse statement issued in Beijing on Friday confirmed the defection.
[...]

Now what have we learned from the good colonel? Here's what one interested group is claiming:

Al Qaeda "is financing its worldwide terror operations by investing in blue-chip Australian stocks with the assistance of Beijing's powerful Secret Intelligence Service" (World Net Daily). The intelligence group from the People's Republic is also involved in drug deals with Osama bin Laden's terrorist group; which is the original source of the money.

Brain McAdam, a Canadian investigator who helped the FBI find thousands of Communist front organizations in North America, (see 8/20/03 Update) said of the money involved, "We are talking of billions of dollars." The fronts he found include "major players on Wall Street" (The News, Australia), and some "are linked to al-Qaeda through its investments."

Also fingering Communist China is Xu Junping, a former PRC Colonel who "for five years oversaw all secret CSIS operations against the West," before defecting to the U.S. in 2000 (see 3/28/01 Update). Xu "has described Beijing meetings with Osama bin Laden in 2000, during which the investment plan was discussed."

Communist China's links to al Qaeda, while not very well known, go back to at least the 1990s, when the PRC paid up to $10 million for unexploded American cruise missiles the terrorist group recovered in Afghanistan. Communist China has also allowed a piece of Pakistan it controls to be an al Qaeda haven (see 10/24/01 and 8/14/02 Updates).

If you are wondering where you heard the name Brian McAdam before, it was because he was one of the authors of a rather controversial report mentioned at The Shotgun.