Recently, a Chinese female anchor in Los Angeles revealed her experience of a hacker attack on her private mailbox at the end of July. She felt that this attack was not the work of an individual, but rather resembled a collective action by the Chinese Communist Party’s cyber army.
Tang Wei, a post-90s from Chengdu, Sichuan, was a self-media anchor in China. Over ten years ago, she and her husband invested millions of RMB to establish a media company. After coming to the US, she utilized her expertise and became a news anchor for the official channel of the Chinese Democratic Party Headquarters. Her confrontational stance against the CCP, combined with a fresh image and unique perspective, undoubtedly made her intolerable to the CCP.
“On the morning of July 30th at 8:50 am, I suddenly received a prompt message about unusual login activity in my mailbox,” Tang Wei said. The mailbox in question was her dedicated account set up on the official website of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and has never been made public. Confused, she quickly checked it.
She discovered that the hackers who had intruded into her mailbox were from multiple IP addresses in Zhengzhou, Jinan, Wuhan, and other cities in China. Among them, hackers from Zhengzhou and Jinan had cracked the password and successfully accessed the mailbox. She hurriedly logged into her USCIS account on the computer and found it locked due to too many login attempts with consecutive incorrect passwords.
“I am currently unable to access my USCIS account and do not know if the information I submitted has been tampered with,” Tang Wei said. She also worried about the personal information stored in her mailbox, including home address, children’s school, and participation in anti-Communist activities being leaked.
How was it determined that it was the work of CCP hackers? Tang Wei said, “From the internal view of the mailbox account, this attack was not isolated incidents but rather repeated organized actions.”
Concerned that her immigration case may be affected, she gathered evidence and immediately reported the incident to the FBI and IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center).
There have been numerous precedents of CCP hacking into the mailboxes of US officials and public figures: in June of this year, several journalists’ mailboxes at The Washington Post were suspected to have been attacked by CCP hackers; in 2023, the mailboxes of high-ranking US officials at the State Department, Commerce Department, and others were also breached by CCP hackers, with investigations still ongoing.
In 2014, Tang Wei and her husband started operating a media company in China, with a registered capital of 10 million RMB, hiring over a dozen employees. They focused on their business, and with her husband’s journalism background, some of the videos they produced garnered over ten million views.
However, a trip abroad changed the fate of the entire family.
At the end of 2023, during their time overseas, Tang Wei and her husband saw sensitive content that was not accessible in China. Her husband shared some humorous videos mocking the top CCP leader in a WeChat group; the next day, they found the videos missing, but didn’t think much of it.
Upon returning to China, less than two days later, Tang Wei’s husband was taken away by the CCP police. All electronic devices were confiscated, including the phone containing some videos advocating for freedom, which now served as incriminating evidence.
This was followed by secret detention and interrogation. During this time, her husband was physically assaulted and humiliated. Tang Wei hesitated to describe, saying, “It was a treatment we could not believe or imagine before.” Fortunately, he was eventually released. However, they discovered that they were constantly under surveillance by the police.
Police would visit them periodically, warning against posting videos recklessly; they would call at any time to inquire about her husband’s whereabouts and demand reports on his activities. Once, when her husband was in Deyang near Chengdu for some business, the police immediately called to ask why he was in Deyang.
“I don’t know if we were being tracked or if there was some software on the phone, but they were always calling. Living in such a monitored state filled us with anxiety, afraid of being arrested again at any moment,” Tang Wei said. “We were really on the verge of a breakdown at that time.” In March last year, the family was forced to flee China.
Reflecting on their experiences in China, Tang Wei said she never thought of becoming a hero, only wanting to do her job well and have a peaceful family life. However, suddenly, they went from being ordinary citizens to “targets that must be eliminated.”
During the investigation of her husband, their phones were tapped, company accounts were scrutinized, employees were interrogated, and the police called at any time… Tang Wei said, “I lived in extreme suppression and anxiety, feeling only fear, tremors, or silence.”
“I kept asking myself repeatedly, what did we do wrong?” Tang Wei said. “Until one day, I finally understood that it wasn’t about what we did wrong, but that we stopped obeying. In this system, you don’t need to break the law; just not conforming is considered ‘wrong.'”
Little did she expect that even after moving to the US, the CCP continued to keep a close watch on them. She believes that this mailbox intrusion is not a simple technical breach but a network attack with organization, premeditation, and specific targets – those who dare to speak out against the CCP.
“At its core, the CCP is an evil system that cannot tolerate the existence of truth. What it truly fears is not weapons but the awakening of people’s hearts,” Tang Wei hopes that more Chinese people dare to speak out about their experiences of coercion, “revealing the comprehensive suppression of individuals, families, and beliefs by the CCP, exposing the hypocrisy and evil of this system.” ◇