A notorious spy with ties to both China and the U.S., Ma, has finally pleaded guilty after being arrested nearly four years ago. His brother, who implicated him, was also reportedly found dead. Both had worked for the CIA, with access to top-secret information. His brother had been active in anti-communist circles for a long time.
Ma Yuk Ching (Alexander Yuk Ching Ma), born in 1952 in British-ruled Hong Kong, moved to the U.S. at the age of 16 to study at the University of Hawaii. In 1975, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
In 1982, at the age of 30, Ma Yuk Ching joined the CIA and was later sent to the Far East after extensive training. He resigned from the CIA in 1989. Court documents reveal that he held the highest level of security clearance.
While working at the CIA, Ma Yuk Ching had signed confidentiality agreements, knowing that even after leaving the agency, these agreements remained valid. However, he chose to return to China in 1995.
After living and working in Shanghai for six years, Ma Yuk Ching returned to the U.S. in 2001. He was then hired by the FBI’s Honolulu office as a contract linguist in 2004, responsible for reviewing and translating Chinese documents. He worked with the FBI from August 2004 until October 2012.
In August 2020, Ma Yuk Ching, then 67, was arrested and charged with engaging in espionage for China for at least a decade. Allegations stated that while employed by the FBI, he routinely copied, photographed, and stole documents marked with U.S. classified information. He also burned images of U.S. missile and other weapon technologies onto CDs. Ma Yuk Ching often carried these documents to China and returned with cash and expensive gifts.
Once, after delivering documents in Shanghai, Ma Yuk Ching flew back to Honolulu. A curious U.S. customs official pulled him aside for inspection and found $20,000 in cash and a new set of golf clubs in his possession. Strangely, no questions were asked, and no action was taken.
It turned out that the FBI never trusted Ma Yuk Ching. Prosecutors later revealed in court that his initial hiring by the FBI was a “ploy” to monitor his contacts with Chinese intelligence operatives.
To trap Ma Yuk Ching, the FBI deployed an undercover agent posing as a Chinese intelligence operative. In the spring of 2019, the undercover agent made contact with Ma Yuk Ching. After gaining Ma’s trust, the agent gave him $2,000 as a “small token of appreciation” for his past assistance to China.
In subsequent meetings, Ma Yuk Ching confided to the agent about his recruitment by Chinese state security and how he passed on intelligence. Ma Yuk Ching later accepted more money from the agent, expressing his willingness to continue assisting the Chinese government and hoping for success for the “motherland.”
After his arrest, Ma Yuk Ching’s former defense attorney told the judge that Ma believed he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, leading to memory decline. However, the judge ruled last year that Ma Yuk Ching was competent, without major mental illness or defects.
Nearly four years after his arrest, Ma Yuk Ching recently admitted guilt. He confessed to conspiring to collect U.S. defense information and provide it to China. The plea agreement calls for Ma Yuk Ching to be sentenced to ten years in prison, with the judge set to pronounce the sentence on September 11.
Without the plea agreement, he would have faced life imprisonment.
In the plea agreement, Ma Yuk Ching admitted to involving a blood relative, referred to as “Co-conspirator 1.”
“Co-conspirator 1” played a more significant role. Ma Yuk Ching previously disclosed to the undercover FBI agent that the initial contact with him by Chinese state security was to get close to “Co-conspirator 1,” as he was a member of an anti-communist organization seen as a threat by China.
In the plea agreement, Ma Yuk Ching confessed that in March 2001, at the request of Chinese state security agents in Shanghai, he persuaded “Co-conspirator 1” to meet Chinese state security agents in a hotel room in Hong Kong. Over three days, the two provided a substantial amount of classified U.S. defense information to the Chinese state security agents. At the end of the third day, the Chinese state security agents handed “Co-conspirator 1” $50,000 in cash, which Ma Yuk Ching helped count. They agreed to continue cooperation.
Ma Yuk Ching also admitted that in February 2006, during his work in Honolulu, he persuaded “Co-conspirator 1” to provide identities of at least two sensitive individuals. The photos of these individuals were provided by Chinese state security agents in Shanghai, and their identities were classified U.S. defense information.
According to court documents from 2020, “Co-conspirator 1,” at the age of 85 and born in Shanghai, moved to the U.S. in 1961, joined the CIA in 1967, and served as an intelligence officer from 1971 to 1982, often stationed overseas with the highest security clearance. By 1983, “Co-conspirator 1” had resigned due to being found using his position to help Chinese citizens enter the U.S. and had been living in Los Angeles since then. However, the court documents did not disclose the name of “Co-conspirator 1.”
A former journalist with the Hong Kong Apple Daily had previously traced descriptions in the charges to “Co-conspirator 1” and found that the resume of David Ma, a Chinese immigrant consultant in Los Angeles, closely matched “Co-conspirator 1’s” background.
In other words, both Ma Yuk Ching and his blood relative David Ma were both compromised by the Chinese Communist Party.
David Ma was a member of the overseas pro-democracy organization “Democratic China Front” in the early 1990s, holding positions as vice-chairman and chairman of the board of directors. In 1998, he participated in establishing the “Overseas Coalition for Chinese Democracy” and served as director of the Foreign Affairs Working Committee, having overseas visits with the chairman Wei Jingsheng.
Later, David Ma also participated in founding the Chinese Democratic Party and established the “China Democratic Rights Party” in 1997. Information shows that by 2008, seven years after “Co-conspirator 1” met Chinese state security in Hong Kong, David Ma still attended pro-democracy events in Los Angeles as a veteran of the Chinese Democracy Movement.
Despite covert collaboration with the CCP for years, David Ma maintained a public image of democracy support. During the 2014 Occupy Movement in Hong Kong, he expressed respect for peaceful protesters and criticized the government for using “gangsters” to attack peaceful demonstrators.
The revelation of the above information shocked the overseas pro-democracy community, and Chinese Communist network commentators known as “fifty cents” took the opportunity to attack. Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy activist who had worked with David Ma, stated that he had always known there were CCP spies among overseas activists, therefore, he was not surprised by this case but unable to publicly expose it due to lack of sufficient evidence, cautioning fellow activists in private to avoid being deceived.
However, U.S. prosecutors ultimately did not charge “Co-conspirator 1” because he was incapacitated due to Alzheimer’s disease. The defense motion pointed out that Ma Yuk Ching’s brother had been afflicted with the disease ten years ago. In a hearing on May 24 this year, prosecutors revealed that the co-conspirator had passed away.
Individuals working in U.S. intelligence agencies are likely top targets for CCP recruitment, but these spies often meet tragic fates. In addition to the “Two Mas” mentioned earlier, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a Chinese-American officer who had worked for the CIA for thirteen years, was arrested in the U.S. in January 2018. Lee’s duties in the CIA included recruiting and training double agents. Due to his espionage, a large number of CIA assets in China were arrested or killed. Lee was sentenced to nineteen years in prison for espionage.
One of the most famous spies ever, Kim Wudai, was also a CIA employee. Kim, who was hidden in the U.S. for thirty-seven years, had a significant impact on the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and U.S.-China relations. After being arrested in 1985, and with no acknowledgment or rescue from the CCP, he tragically ended his life in prison using a plastic bag and a shoelace at the age of 63.