Erik Prince sells America out to Chinese intelligence

The People’s Republic of China is quite skilled in the business of espionage, but not the type of espionage that their Western counterparts engage in. The PRC’s strengths lie in open-source intelligence gathering (OSINT) and cyber espionage, which they use to create a “comprehensive system for spotting foreign technologies, acquiring them by every means imaginable, and converting them into weapons and competitive goods” (Hannas, 2). China’s chief intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), and its various satellites are not a mirror image of the CIA, Mossad, the FSB, or MI-6, but utilize uniquely Chinese methods of acquiring and stealing information.

In the communist Chinese school system, children learn by rote and are taught they need to be harmonized with the larger collective system that is China. As one could imagine, this type of educational system helps centralize power within the communist party, but also stifles innovation and creativity. This has the net effect of potentially stifling the Chinese economy, as a people who remain stagnant will ultimately perish. The Chinese government knows this, which is why they are so intent on stealing innovations from others, including the United States.

Say what you will about Erik Prince, but in many ways, he is a visionary. A former Navy SEAL, Prince founded Blackwater, a private military company that provided security services to the United States government. Starting off as a center to train law enforcement officers in Moyock, North Carolina, the company’s objectives changed quickly after 9/11, when the U.S. government began scrambling for various security solutions. To this end, Blackwater offered executive-protection services to the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency.