Chinese Embassy “Officials” were on a “sightseeing tour” and “accidentally” drove on to a Virginia Military Base. After being told they couldn’t enter, they drove on to the base anyway. Obviously they were testing Base security, but why have the wives along? Do the Chinese send over fake husband/ wife intelligence teams? Were they so sure that they were going to be immediately brought to the airport and expelled, that they didn’t want to leave their wives behind?
Why bring wives? Because what kind of a spy would go out in a mission with their wife!
Or, in other words, to provoke precisely the reaction you yourself have experienced.
ETA: It’s also possible they’re NOT spies, it was just an honest mistake, and they got confused or misunderstood. But China hasn’t earned much consideration of late, so they’re out.
Maybe the officials are just cover and the wives are the real spies.
Oh yeah, like in that movie, the name of which I can’t mention because doing so would spoil it.
Spy Wives? I didn’t see that one but the trailer looked interesting.
Assuming it wasn’t a genuine mistake and they were spies (I’m not sure why the Chinese would bother), it could have been meant as a social signal that they didn’t intend things to escalate to violence. And to make it less likely that the guards would do so.
I would guess that, due to the optics involved, deporting or arresting a woman would look worse than merely deporting or arresting a man.
headscratch
I don’t see how that follows at all.
I can see the logic in bringing the wives along, to look like a family going out for pleasure.
It gives a (minimal) amount of cover for saying “oh we just made a mistake, we were just looking for a nice spot to have a picnic.”
It’s the kind of thing that might work for a minor offence…like a policeman letting you out of a traffic ticket with just a warning.But on a military base it seems a little unlikely.
I wonder what happened to the car they were driving. Whose car was it? Was it impounded or confiscated? Did they dismantle it down to the last nut and bolt looking for bugs?
No need to think too deeply. The various posts in the thread have answered it. The spouses give somewhat of a cover, and also make it less likely that harder measures would be employed.
They were having a lovely outing. They drove onto the base and got themselves arrested so they could expense the trip.
My theory; you’re misinterpreting things. The wives are the real spies and the husbands just cover.
The Times this morning said that the whole lot of them got expelled, and that they tried to evade the base police and got stopped only by a bunch of vehicles in a roadblock.
Based on what Mrs. J. tells me about Chinese women swarming outlet stores, maybe the embassy officials’ wives planned to descend on the PX in search of bargains while their spouses ‘‘accidentally’’ gleaned intelligence on base activities. :dubious:
Let’s just say Chinese would not make such an “honest” mistake in China of trying to drive into a restricted military base or zone. No one is that fucking stupid.
Who knows why they pulled this stunt but travelling as “couples” looks a lot more innocent.
Since they were embassy folks, they had to have been trained and know there is some stuff you can’t do as a Chinese accredited official in the US.