Anyone else curious about the ages of the defendants? 59, 73 and 62 years old respectively. Is it harder for the PRC to recruit younger "spies" or are older ones just more reliable?
ah! indeed that's another possibility, they simply don't get caught (at least this time)
I am totally shooting from the hip on all this, but I do wonder if/when there is a trade-off point between the expertise and energy youth can put into the trade versus the benefits and efficiencies of experience.
Older ones are likely more susceptible to bribe/pay the closer they are to retirement if they're not financially secure.
Yes, I noticed that too. Seems like they're tapping older people with connections and resources. I imagine there's going to be more younger gen assets to tap in future, a lot more nationalist PRC diaspora in west now vs older gen who fled PRC/China when it was a shitshow.
I've been surprised how nationalist some older Chinese expats are. In particular, I found some older HKers were very pro PRC. This was all before the Umbrella Movement. I put it down to becoming more conservative as you age (anecdotal evidence).
My feeling is older Chinese diaspora comes in roughly two flavours, dissidents who still see PRC as politically repressive shithole (fair) or economic migrants who left broke China but are now proud of rich China. I think folks intuitively group Chinese diaspora together with ex Soviet State diaspora, people who fled failing communism states that remain stagnant. But modern China is more "new country" than "old country". Combine with influence of pro PRC media ecosystem = resurging nationalism.