1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,720
Speaker 1: It's actually a place of choice. You're giving the choice

2
00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:04,360
to listen to whatever you would like to when it

3
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,360
comes to podcasting, Why should you be forced to listen

4
00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:09,560
to blah blah blah when you don't even know who

5
00:00:09,599 --> 00:00:13,000
blah blah blah? Is ero dot Net a r r

6
00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:16,199
o e dot net. One show you might like is

7
00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:20,000
pod Crashing and Podcrashing one on one. I talk to

8
00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:23,679
the world's greatest podcasters and then we break it all

9
00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:26,760
down to find out how you can become stronger in

10
00:00:26,879 --> 00:00:30,879
podcasting with Podcrashing one on one only on erow dot

11
00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:35,240
net A R r o e dot net. Enjoy your exploration.

12
00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:36,880
Good morning, Drake and Jordan.

13
00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:40,359
Speaker 2: How are you doing doing great? Thanks Ay dude, so

14
00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:41,759
great er. Thanks for having us on.

15
00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:44,200
Speaker 1: Well, I gotta tell you you guys are talking about

16
00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:46,280
something on this podcast. And well, first of all, I

17
00:00:46,320 --> 00:00:48,159
love the fact that you're doing a podcast and it's

18
00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:50,719
not being stuffed into just a three minute report. You're

19
00:00:50,759 --> 00:00:55,240
giving me, as the listener, an opportunity to really study

20
00:00:55,439 --> 00:00:59,079
the experience because it is us an experience when it

21
00:00:59,079 --> 00:01:00,840
comes to these six bureau.

22
00:01:01,119 --> 00:01:01,880
Speaker 2: That's great to hear.

23
00:01:02,119 --> 00:01:05,640
Speaker 3: That's great, really really appreciate hearing that row and that's

24
00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:07,799
been our goal. I mean, like the podcast and it's

25
00:01:07,799 --> 00:01:09,519
the first time that either Drake or I have done

26
00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:12,359
a podcast series. But the deeper we got into this

27
00:01:12,439 --> 00:01:15,480
reporting from more, we realized this was the podcast series

28
00:01:15,599 --> 00:01:18,319
was the perfect vehicle for the reporting we got on

29
00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:19,120
this Chinese spy.

30
00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:21,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the one thing that you're doing here is

31
00:01:21,519 --> 00:01:25,359
that you're letting us inside something that history has chosen

32
00:01:25,439 --> 00:01:28,120
to set aside, and then we walk forward because we think, ah,

33
00:01:28,239 --> 00:01:30,319
if I don't know about it, then it didn't really happen.

34
00:01:30,439 --> 00:01:32,519
But my god, I mean, you talk about being in

35
00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:34,640
the right place at the right time when it comes

36
00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:36,599
to anything associated with the sixth Bureau.

37
00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:43,079
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think basically the sixth Bureau, just

38
00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:46,200
to kind of help listeners out, is a part of

39
00:01:46,239 --> 00:01:49,439
the MSS, the Minister State Security, which is the kind

40
00:01:49,439 --> 00:01:51,439
of the most important spy agency that.

41
00:01:51,599 --> 00:01:52,319
Speaker 2: You've never heard of.

42
00:01:52,439 --> 00:01:57,480
Speaker 4: It's China's main intelligence agency and they've got responsibilities that

43
00:01:57,519 --> 00:02:00,439
are similar to the CIAS or the KGB or whatever.

44
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:03,480
But then they have this extra kind of portfolio which

45
00:02:03,519 --> 00:02:07,359
is trade secret theft, economic espionage, and it's something that

46
00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:09,439
kind of I think people are aware that it happens,

47
00:02:10,439 --> 00:02:14,199
but not they don't really know much about the folks

48
00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:16,639
at in China who are pulling the strings to sort

49
00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:18,000
of make these operations happen.

50
00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:20,520
Speaker 2: Usually it's kind of like a low level recruit.

51
00:02:20,199 --> 00:02:23,360
Speaker 4: That gets arrested. So we're actually able to tell the

52
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:26,120
story of kind of like a spymaster over in China

53
00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:31,039
because of the fact that he ended up getting and

54
00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:34,080
this is the story we tell, like lured out of China, arrested,

55
00:02:34,159 --> 00:02:37,000
put on trial in the US, and when that happens,

56
00:02:37,199 --> 00:02:40,800
all this amazing information comes out about him and his organization.

57
00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:43,520
Speaker 1: I mean, that was the very first time that someone

58
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,439
was arrested on American soil, was it not? And if

59
00:02:46,479 --> 00:02:48,360
it is all of a sudden, now my eyes are

60
00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:50,919
wide open, going who else is out there? Because this

61
00:02:51,159 --> 00:02:53,120
is not just a one person job.

62
00:02:54,039 --> 00:02:54,759
Speaker 2: That's right?

63
00:02:54,759 --> 00:02:56,319
Speaker 3: Ear Yeah, I mean, this is this case that we're

64
00:02:56,479 --> 00:02:59,080
that we profile that we do in the series. It

65
00:02:59,199 --> 00:03:01,039
truly is one of the kind case there has never

66
00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,439
been a case before like this, There might never be

67
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:05,800
a case like this. Again, this was the first time

68
00:03:05,879 --> 00:03:09,599
a Chinese Ministry of State Security intelligence officer had been

69
00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:13,960
lured out of China. Arrested in Belgium actually and extradited

70
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,199
to the US and put on trial for trade secret

71
00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:18,800
theft that has literally never happened there at the you know,

72
00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:22,639
the backstory to this is there's an incredible, creative, imaginative

73
00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:26,280
FBI sting operation that gets this guy to travel, which

74
00:03:26,520 --> 00:03:29,439
you know, within China, these MSS officers.

75
00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:30,280
Speaker 2: Have extraordinary power.

76
00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:33,680
Speaker 3: They also have essentially kind of they can operate with impunity,

77
00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:37,479
but the moment they leave China, you know that that's

78
00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:40,319
potentially very different for them. And you know, Drake and

79
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:42,599
I first got onto this story several years ago. We

80
00:03:42,639 --> 00:03:45,319
wrote a BusinessWeek story about this case, the criminal case

81
00:03:46,039 --> 00:03:48,520
that was based largely on kind of court records transcripts,

82
00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:51,199
but the deeper we dug and the moment reporting we did,

83
00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:54,120
you know, we eventually got our hands on hours of

84
00:03:54,199 --> 00:03:58,159
secret audio and video recordings and then even more documents.

85
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:00,840
Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys, but I right away

86
00:04:00,879 --> 00:04:03,319
when I heard about Chin, I'm going, ah, I'm not

87
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:06,120
trusting this dude. Something's not right here. And that's what

88
00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:08,479
I love about your podcast is that I'll sit there

89
00:04:08,479 --> 00:04:10,280
and talk to that speaker all the way down the

90
00:04:10,319 --> 00:04:11,159
damn road.

91
00:04:14,599 --> 00:04:15,080
Speaker 2: That's right.

92
00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:17,839
Speaker 4: We kind of want, right, I mean, I think there

93
00:04:17,879 --> 00:04:20,319
are you can sort of see, like we're sort of

94
00:04:20,319 --> 00:04:24,079
trying to tell the story from various folks viewpoints in retrospect.

95
00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:25,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some red flags about.

96
00:04:25,879 --> 00:04:30,040
Speaker 4: I mean there's various people are fooling other various people.

97
00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:31,839
Speaker 2: And sort of pretending to be something they're not. And

98
00:04:31,879 --> 00:04:32,800
there's you know, you.

99
00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:36,959
Speaker 4: Can look back now and kind of realize where people

100
00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:37,920
made these mistakes.

101
00:04:38,319 --> 00:04:39,639
Speaker 3: I was just going to say, you know, there's just

102
00:04:39,639 --> 00:04:42,040
a piggyback on that a little bit. You know. One

103
00:04:42,079 --> 00:04:44,600
of the things you learned through watching these spies operate

104
00:04:44,639 --> 00:04:47,279
and then watching the spy hunters operate against them, because

105
00:04:47,319 --> 00:04:49,839
you get both in the story is you learn that

106
00:04:49,959 --> 00:04:52,360
like and this is true for scams as well. It's

107
00:04:52,399 --> 00:04:55,240
not just law enforcement, but like people who get fooled

108
00:04:55,279 --> 00:04:59,000
by something very often, all you need is one accurate

109
00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:01,720
piece of information. So what you're talking about Erro, which

110
00:05:01,759 --> 00:05:04,279
is our launch episode, our first episode.

111
00:05:04,439 --> 00:05:05,439
Speaker 2: You know, it's this approach.

112
00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:09,600
Speaker 3: Somebody is approaching somebody else on the streets near downtown Chicago.

113
00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:12,600
It's part of this operation. You know, that person who

114
00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:14,800
did the approach knew a lot about the person he

115
00:05:14,879 --> 00:05:17,800
was approaching, But the part of the approach that worked

116
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:19,959
was he knew something about him. He knew kind of

117
00:05:19,959 --> 00:05:23,720
one or two key facts, and like that oftentimes, as

118
00:05:23,800 --> 00:05:26,399
kind of surprising as it is to many of us.

119
00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:28,000
Speaker 2: Sometimes that's all you need.

120
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:30,920
Speaker 3: If somebody approaches you and they know something that you

121
00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:34,160
have told very few people, maybe nobody at all. Like

122
00:05:34,759 --> 00:05:37,399
sometimes that's enough. And that's what these guys operate on,

123
00:05:37,519 --> 00:05:40,519
Like that's their currency, is I know something about you,

124
00:05:40,959 --> 00:05:42,480
and let's do something.

125
00:05:42,639 --> 00:05:45,759
Speaker 1: Dude, I'm that guy that has screwing around with other people.

126
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:47,600
I'll walk up to him and I'll say, yeah, I

127
00:05:47,639 --> 00:05:49,199
heard what you did, and they'll go what I do?

128
00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:51,439
Come on, dude, I don't know if this is the place,

129
00:05:51,560 --> 00:05:54,399
but dude, they will admit stuff to me that I

130
00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:57,399
wasn't supposed to know. But it's such a freaking game.

131
00:05:57,439 --> 00:05:59,519
And I'm sure it's a game for you guys as well.

132
00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:03,759
Speaker 3: Sounds like you would be a great MSS officer FBI era.

133
00:06:03,959 --> 00:06:06,920
Speaker 1: And it's pairing, is what it is. But the thing is,

134
00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:08,439
it was that one of the things that really knocked

135
00:06:08,439 --> 00:06:10,639
me off balance. And I know I've done this. Oh

136
00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:13,399
we know the same people the very second I heard that,

137
00:06:13,439 --> 00:06:17,040
I'm going, oh my god, we all say that, and

138
00:06:17,079 --> 00:06:19,639
that's where we make mistakes in our own personal lives.

139
00:06:20,959 --> 00:06:22,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that's

140
00:06:23,079 --> 00:06:26,360
kind of fun for Jordan and me is realizing the

141
00:06:26,399 --> 00:06:30,199
ways in which the work that an MSS officer does,

142
00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:33,279
the work that an intelligence officer does, is kind of similar.

143
00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:34,759
Speaker 2: To what we do, right, I mean, and some of

144
00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:37,360
the tools are actually the same. I Mean, the MSS

145
00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:40,240
makes a lot of use of LinkedIn of all things.

146
00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:43,000
Speaker 4: They sort of like reach out to people and kind

147
00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:45,480
of just see if they're interested in certain kinds of

148
00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:47,240
vague opportunities and then go from there.

149
00:06:47,279 --> 00:06:49,079
Speaker 2: I mean, and that's a tool we use too. I mean,

150
00:06:49,319 --> 00:06:50,000
you know, so it's.

151
00:06:49,879 --> 00:06:55,160
Speaker 4: Basically like finding people who have information you need and

152
00:06:55,199 --> 00:06:57,360
then seeing it if they'll tell you that information.

153
00:06:57,480 --> 00:06:59,720
Speaker 2: It's kind of it's kind of the same thing.

154
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:02,279
Speaker 4: And so that's been a parallel that's been kind of

155
00:07:02,319 --> 00:07:06,399
eye opening for us as we've gone on the journey

156
00:07:06,399 --> 00:07:08,680
of trying to figure out and then tell this story.

157
00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:11,079
Speaker 1: Please Do Not Move. There's more with Drake Bennett and

158
00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:15,240
Jordan Robertson coming up next. The name of the podcast

159
00:07:15,399 --> 00:07:18,079
The sixth Bureau from Bloomberg. You can pick it up

160
00:07:18,079 --> 00:07:21,040
on iHeartRadio. We are back with Drake and Jordan. Oh

161
00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:22,879
my god. And then to find out that the person

162
00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:25,360
you've been talking with has been an FBI agent. Oh

163
00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:27,920
my god, how do I know? You guys aren't FBI agents?

164
00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:30,279
And there's door, there's people outside my door right now?

165
00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:33,959
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know.

166
00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:36,519
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this is a lot of people are listening

167
00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:37,360
to this right now, So.

168
00:07:39,319 --> 00:07:43,000
Speaker 2: Let's secret here. Yeah.

169
00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:45,160
Speaker 3: Era one of the really fascinating parts for us too.

170
00:07:45,199 --> 00:07:47,480
As we mentioned, you know, like we started reporting this

171
00:07:47,759 --> 00:07:50,279
a while ago, several years ago. There are very few

172
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:53,360
stories that are worth kind of chipping away at, kind

173
00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:56,240
of kind of longer than the initial publication, but this

174
00:07:56,439 --> 00:07:58,720
was one of them. Drake and I realized, like, this

175
00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:01,639
is the perfect viewhicle to tell the story of Chinese

176
00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:05,600
industrial espionage. We had covered previous China spy cases and

177
00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:08,040
China spy stories, and some of them were very good.

178
00:08:08,079 --> 00:08:10,720
These are all great investigations by the FBI or foreign

179
00:08:10,759 --> 00:08:14,000
governments or whatever, but they almost always leave you feeling

180
00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:16,240
a little bit kind of let down in the sense

181
00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:18,600
that the people you get you're getting the people are

182
00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:21,560
being put on trial. Almost without exception, are kind of

183
00:08:21,560 --> 00:08:24,000
the lowest person on the totem pole. They're the person

184
00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:27,199
who is stealing information from their employer at the request

185
00:08:27,240 --> 00:08:30,160
or direction of somebody back in China. You almost never

186
00:08:30,279 --> 00:08:33,720
get the person in China kind of controlling the puppet strings.

187
00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:37,320
In this case, you do again through this amazing, creative,

188
00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:41,960
ambitious FBI investigative work. Like they got this guy to

189
00:08:42,039 --> 00:08:43,879
leave China. And this is not a spoiler. This in

190
00:08:43,879 --> 00:08:46,200
our first episode. They got the guy to leave China,

191
00:08:46,279 --> 00:08:48,159
they got him to travel, they arrested him, they put

192
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:50,679
him on trial, and they did what you know a

193
00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:53,360
great government investigation will do, which is put as much

194
00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:55,399
as they can to the public record. That was our

195
00:08:55,440 --> 00:08:57,960
starting point, and then we went way beyond that. We

196
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:01,000
think it's fascinating. We think it's a pretty unprecedented view

197
00:09:01,480 --> 00:09:04,399
into how Chinese trade secret theft works and really the

198
00:09:04,399 --> 00:09:07,279
effect on China's economy, right, and you can't separate the two.

199
00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:11,240
China's economy has advanced dramatically in the last ten twenty years.

200
00:09:11,519 --> 00:09:13,799
One of the ways that's happened is through the kind

201
00:09:13,840 --> 00:09:16,080
of trade secret theft that we profile in the series.

202
00:09:16,159 --> 00:09:18,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, but don't you think it's because they're investing in

203
00:09:18,759 --> 00:09:22,759
ponds inside this tech game of chess, because you know,

204
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:25,000
put the pawns out there, see if we can get

205
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:26,799
an inch, all right, Now, next time around, we're going

206
00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:29,480
to go for two inches. But they're putting out innocent people.

207
00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:32,360
That's what I got as a vibe in the very beginning.

208
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,039
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as as we

209
00:09:37,039 --> 00:09:38,600
put it at one point in the podcast, like the

210
00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:40,919
MSS is in the business of making.

211
00:09:40,679 --> 00:09:42,399
Speaker 2: Bets, Like they make a lot of bets.

212
00:09:42,879 --> 00:09:45,679
Speaker 4: So you know, they're just making a lot of bets

213
00:09:46,039 --> 00:09:48,080
and some of them turn out right, and you know,

214
00:09:48,159 --> 00:09:50,399
and that's not to say that the only reason that

215
00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,559
the you know, China makes great electric vehicles and great

216
00:09:53,639 --> 00:09:55,600
phones and all that is because they stole the secrets.

217
00:09:55,639 --> 00:09:58,679
I mean, there's a lot of indigenous innovation and work,

218
00:09:58,759 --> 00:10:01,600
and but I mean it it's certainly helped.

219
00:10:01,679 --> 00:10:03,279
Speaker 2: And there's I mean, one of.

220
00:10:03,279 --> 00:10:05,879
Speaker 4: The things that was really interesting to see is just

221
00:10:05,919 --> 00:10:10,799
the way in which say, an engineer working on in

222
00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:14,679
our case, it was aviation technology, and then the engineers

223
00:10:14,679 --> 00:10:18,440
in China work with MSS officers, so they're basically like

224
00:10:18,919 --> 00:10:20,679
tasking them. They're like, you know, what we would love

225
00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:23,960
to know more about is like this part of the

226
00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:27,039
you know, fan blade of the engine or this you know,

227
00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:29,559
part of the control system. Like we're kind of having

228
00:10:29,559 --> 00:10:31,879
trouble figuring out how to do that, and then the

229
00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:34,120
MSS goes out and tries to get them for them,

230
00:10:34,159 --> 00:10:36,360
So it is kind of this whole system.

231
00:10:36,919 --> 00:10:39,360
Speaker 1: I guess the part that I'm shocked over is the

232
00:10:39,399 --> 00:10:41,919
fact that it's it's it's like right here in front

233
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:43,919
of us when it comes to MSS. And of course

234
00:10:43,960 --> 00:10:46,919
my mind instantly goes to TikTok because TikTok is always

235
00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:50,360
under in big trouble. Oh they're Chinese, they're stealing information. Well,

236
00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:52,559
you know what, after listening to the Sixth Bureau, your

237
00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:55,480
podcast from Bloomberg, I'm going, you know, I think I

238
00:10:55,519 --> 00:10:57,639
have a different view of what's going on here.

239
00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:01,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen to that. First of all, ear again, thanks

240
00:11:01,559 --> 00:11:03,240
for listening to. I mean, because it's you know, we

241
00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:04,720
put a lot of work into it. We think it's

242
00:11:04,759 --> 00:11:08,039
really interesting. TikTok's a great example of a technology that

243
00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:11,080
is you know, it's when you look at China and

244
00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:13,399
kind of espionage, you know that the one way to

245
00:11:13,399 --> 00:11:16,279
look at it is. You know, if if the US

246
00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:20,960
had an opportunity to have a version of TikTok in China,

247
00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:24,759
the US would take it. We don't, America doesn't. But

248
00:11:24,879 --> 00:11:26,200
if if the US.

249
00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:28,000
Speaker 2: Did, you could, you would.

250
00:11:27,799 --> 00:11:30,639
Speaker 3: Expect your intelligence services to use that, right like you

251
00:11:30,639 --> 00:11:33,360
would expect that they, you know. And so what you

252
00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:36,720
have is, you know, China. When I first started covering

253
00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:39,120
a lot of this stuff, a lot of China's efforts

254
00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:43,480
to kind of replicate Western technologies were frankly laughable. Like

255
00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:46,159
Huawei when they when they first kind of started, they

256
00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:48,960
were making kind of really bad knockoffs of like Cisco

257
00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:52,600
Gear or whatever. You fast forward twenty years, twenty years now,

258
00:11:52,679 --> 00:11:55,440
Huawei is the dominant network equipment maker in the world.

259
00:11:55,679 --> 00:11:58,879
Chinese electric vehicles are you know, kind of on par

260
00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:01,720
or even in some case better than you know, American

261
00:12:01,799 --> 00:12:04,399
electric vehicles. And you can go down that list. So

262
00:12:04,519 --> 00:12:06,360
now we're at a place where China is a peer

263
00:12:06,360 --> 00:12:09,840
economy and by some measures maybe even a peer military.

264
00:12:10,240 --> 00:12:12,000
And so we're in a very different world. There's a

265
00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:14,639
new world order, you know, trade secret SUFT is part

266
00:12:14,639 --> 00:12:17,200
of it. We think this case is a fascinating window

267
00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:21,639
into how that works, and you know, just personally as journalists,

268
00:12:21,639 --> 00:12:24,159
like we've been fascinated by the story. That's why we've

269
00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:26,559
kept at it for for all these years. And you know,

270
00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:28,759
we really hope that people who listen to it are

271
00:12:28,759 --> 00:12:31,159
as fascinated as we are by it, because it's these

272
00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:33,080
cases like these don't come around very often. In fact,

273
00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:34,480
they don't, They hardly come around at all.

274
00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:37,759
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the optimistic pessimist here. If if they're

275
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:41,320
stealing information from us, what are we stealing from them?

276
00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:42,480
Are we getting anything?

277
00:12:46,679 --> 00:12:48,240
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a really good question.

278
00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:51,759
Speaker 4: I don't, you know, I think as a matter of policy,

279
00:12:52,039 --> 00:12:54,960
the uh, you know, American intelligence services are not in

280
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:57,559
the business of doing the kind of thing the MSS does,

281
00:12:58,559 --> 00:13:02,639
which is, you know, maybe there's some you know, I

282
00:13:02,639 --> 00:13:04,799
think maybe there's a bit of a gray area around

283
00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:08,039
things that are kind of like military sort of national

284
00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:11,879
security importance of military technologies. But it's a very different picture,

285
00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:14,279
you know. I Mean one of the questions though, is

286
00:13:14,639 --> 00:13:17,360
whether there's that's kind of like a luxury we've had,

287
00:13:17,519 --> 00:13:19,159
you know, we haven't had to do that because we

288
00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:21,240
have been the leader in all these realms.

289
00:13:21,279 --> 00:13:24,039
Speaker 2: I mean, if you go back in history. I mean,

290
00:13:24,039 --> 00:13:26,039
the United States does have a history of doing this.

291
00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:28,639
Speaker 4: If you look at like the industrial evolution, Like a

292
00:13:28,679 --> 00:13:32,600
lot of these mills in New England, those are basically

293
00:13:32,639 --> 00:13:36,200
built on designs stolen from elsewhere, Great Britain in particular,

294
00:13:36,279 --> 00:13:38,279
and so you know in Great Britain stole the design,

295
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:40,440
you know, so it sort of goes back and back

296
00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:40,799
and back.

297
00:13:40,879 --> 00:13:42,879
Speaker 2: You know, it's turtles all the way down. So I

298
00:13:42,919 --> 00:13:45,080
don't you know, I think maybe if.

299
00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:48,840
Speaker 4: If we're in a situation where we really have fallen

300
00:13:48,879 --> 00:13:52,240
behind and a lot of these high tech kind of spheres,

301
00:13:52,279 --> 00:13:55,639
like you know, the United States might have to sort

302
00:13:55,639 --> 00:13:59,440
of re examine our sort of aversion to doing MSS

303
00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:03,360
style kind of collection. But right now, that is that

304
00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:05,720
is still a difference between how China sees it and

305
00:14:05,759 --> 00:14:06,360
how we see it.

306
00:14:06,399 --> 00:14:08,440
Speaker 1: I got to give you, guys kudo and your production

307
00:14:08,559 --> 00:14:11,279
team kudo on the texture of this podcast, because we

308
00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:13,519
are living in a new age of texture when it

309
00:14:13,559 --> 00:14:15,600
comes to putting that in our offices, in our cars,

310
00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,759
because how you're recording, the recording devices, everything that's on there.

311
00:14:20,039 --> 00:14:23,159
Really it's the one rule we have in radio attract attention,

312
00:14:23,279 --> 00:14:27,399
reattract attention, attract attention. You guys master that art on

313
00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:30,399
the sixth Bureau. You're always attracting my attention.

314
00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:34,039
Speaker 3: That's really nice to hear Erro And we'll let our

315
00:14:34,039 --> 00:14:36,399
production team know that because we you know, this is

316
00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:38,480
a this is a special opportunity for me and Drake

317
00:14:38,759 --> 00:14:40,960
as well. We've never done one of these before. We've

318
00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:43,279
been reporters a long time. We've never done a podcast series.

319
00:14:43,279 --> 00:14:45,919
And there's a really amazing team at Bloomberg you know

320
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:47,840
that we've worked with to put this stuff together, and

321
00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:50,799
it's been really eye opening to see how much work

322
00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:53,000
goes into one of these things, especially if you want

323
00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:55,320
to make it compelling. And what we're dealing with here

324
00:14:55,480 --> 00:14:58,799
is like recorded, you know, secretly recorded conversations, so the

325
00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:00,679
audio quality may not be a amazing at that, but

326
00:15:00,720 --> 00:15:01,639
you get to hear these.

327
00:15:01,519 --> 00:15:03,000
Speaker 2: People talking to you at time.

328
00:15:03,399 --> 00:15:05,600
Speaker 3: You also have voice actors, right, so you have like

329
00:15:05,639 --> 00:15:07,879
Mandarin speakers of English, and like, there are a lot

330
00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:10,519
of layers to it and it's it is very complicated.

331
00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:12,639
We've got an amazing team to work us. I'm glad

332
00:15:12,639 --> 00:15:14,399
that it's grabbed you. That's like the goal and the

333
00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:15,879
point and it's it's really nice to hear that.

334
00:15:15,919 --> 00:15:18,159
Speaker 1: Wow, twenty minutes with you, guys is not enough.

335
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:18,360
Speaker 4: Man.

336
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:20,639
Speaker 1: Please come back to this show anytime in the future.

337
00:15:20,679 --> 00:15:22,879
The door is always going to be open for you.

338
00:15:23,879 --> 00:15:26,679
Speaker 2: We'd be hard to be brilliant today.

339
00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:28,159
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, thanks to