As Natalie Winters reported this week, numerous very high-ranking retired U.S. military officers engaged with a Chinese Communist Party front organization, The China Association for International Friendly Contact. Winters reports that “The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission found that the group performed the dual roles of ‘intelligence collection’ and ‘conducting propaganda and perception management campaigns.’”
There is simply no question that the retired U.S. officers involved here should have suspected the CCP’s not-so-hidden hand and ulterior motives. Senior officers are heavily briefed on the CCP’s influence-peddling strategy and tactics. Perhaps some of these retired officers were foolish enough to believe that their engagement would serve both countries’ national interests. In the case of Adm. William “Bill” Owens, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, the evidence suggests collusion with a foreign adversary against U.S. interests.
Winters’s reporting and publicly available information make clear that Owens was the retired U.S. military officer most intimately involved in this CCP effort. And the one who gained the most profit from it. He should now face War Department scrutiny, including a possible recall to active service to face court-martial for conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman. He appears to have undermined the honor of the U.S. Navy and the national security interests in countering CCP political warfare.
True, China has become a far more aggressive and noteworthy adversary since Owens advocated most strongly on its behalf more than a decade ago. Yet, even in 2020, Owens was still spewing CCP propaganda. Indeed, so fawning was Owens about his relationship with a Chinese general that he teared up. He regaled how the two had agreed that the U.S. and China should cooperate, not compete, on military, technology, and other issues. Owens then tellingly observed that the audience should not “get the wrong idea, I am not a Chinese sympathizer.”
Delusion and poor political views are not illegal, of course. They are sacred American rights. But the evidence suggests that Owens’s rhetoric is only the tip of a far larger iceberg when it comes to his service of America’s preeminent adversary.
A Marine Corps University report noted how American participants in the CCP scheme were asked to advance CCP narratives in Washington. It adds, “Meetings were subsequently held during 2009, in Honolulu, Hawaii; Washington, DC; and New York City. As a result, Owens (who had business interests in China as a managing director of AEA Investors in Hong Kong) published an opinion piece opposing the Taiwan Relations Act as harmful to the relationship with a rising great power — China — that has increasing wealth and influence in the world. Owens and certain other U.S. officers continued to meet with senior CCP officials and to support PRC security objectives in discussions with members of Congress and [Pentagon] officials.”
That opinion piece was for the distinguished Financial Times, a boon that would have earned Owens much figurative or literal gratitude in Beijing. But Owens also worked as a business partner of the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei. Chinese state media lavished praise upon him for this service in 2014, quoting Owens as stating, “You want to find the best telecoms in the world, you go to Huawei. I’m unafraid because I know it’s the best equipment, and we should be unafraid. If you want the best, you can’t find it in companies that are competing with Huawei today. For the good of the American people, we need Huawei in the United States.”
This is truly astonishing rhetoric, especially from such a senior former military officer. After all, Huawei is a Chinese intelligence service front. Its software is designed with both active spying ports and deliberate flaws that could be used for deniable espionage and then blamed as accidental if that spying was eventually detected. Hence why Huawei has been restricted from access to U.S. networks and those of many American allies. Hence why the U.S. has prioritized these restrictions as a key requirement of national security.
We must expect more from senior officers. Just as the Justice Department and military have imposed serious sanctions on those convicted of spying or secretly lobbying for China, so also should there be consequences here. At a minimum, Owens would appear to deserve a demotion in rank and a reduction in his pension benefits.
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There is also a broader principle at stake. Namely, the belief across the military that the most senior officers are excluded from the same disciplinary treatment as more junior officers. Another example here is offered by Gen. David Petraeus, who escaped any military sanctions after leaking highly classified information to his lover.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken some foolish actions during his tenure, but his initiating disciplinary action in this case would seem both necessary and overdue.