From the Dec 21st ed of the Washington Times:
China’s intelligence service gained access to a secret National Security Agency listening post in Hawaii through a Chinese-language translation service, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
[…]
According to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, China’s Ministry of State Security, the main civilian spy service, carried out the operations by setting up a Chinese translation service in Hawaii that represented itself as a U.S.-origin company.
The ruse led to classified contracts with the Navy and NSA to translate some of the hundreds of thousands of intercepted communications gathered by NSA’s network of listening posts, aircraft and ships.
[…]
China’s intelligence service used intelligence officers and supporters to identify Chinese Americans with access to secrets who would be approached and offered free visits to China, often to meet relatives. The Chinese would then use the visit to attempt to recruit the Americans as spies. [emphasis added]
Wretchard has more at the Belmont Club.
It’s commonly translated as the motherland, by the way. 母亲, or the non-informal term for mother.
*
*
Appreciate you telling me that. I thought I’d read a few years ago that the translation was “the land of our fathers.” But hey, I’m not gonna argue with you.