"We will maintain a zero-tolerance policy for any employee who is caught undermining our country’s national security," Pigott emphasised, as quoted by AP.
News
US diplomat fired over romance with woman with alleged ties to Chinese Communist Party
"I defied my government for love," he was secretly recorded on camera saying.
October 09, 2025, 12:23 PM
A United States diplomat has been fired after he "admitted concealing a romantic relationship with a Chinese national with known ties to the Chinese Communist Party," U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on Oct. 8.
Pigott did not identify the diplomat in his statement, but the diplomat and his girlfriend had been surreptitiously filmed in a video posted online by political activist James O’Keefe, AP reported.
The diplomat said on camera that the Chinese woman "could have been a spy" and that her father was "straight-up communist party," the South China Morning Post quoted the statement saying.
On Aug. 7, O'Keefe posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) of conversations between an undercover journalist and a man supposedly identified as U.S. foreign service officer Daniel Choi.
Not aware that he was being filmed, Choi revealed that he "was supposed to sort of report what I knew about her".
In another conversation, he said, "I defied my government for love."
According to AP, the diplomat's dismissal is the first of its kind for violating a ban on all American government personnel in China from having any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens.
This ban was introduced in late 2024 under then-U.S. President Joe Biden's administration.
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