The Weird, Twisting Tale of How China Spied on Alysa Liu and Her Dad

On November 16, 2021, Matthew Ziburis sat in his car in a residential neighborhood in the Bay Area stalking an “enemy,” as he put it. A veteran of both the US Army and Marine Corps, Ziburis had previously served in Iraq. But on this mission, he was working at the behest of China’s government. The targets that autumn day were American citizens: Arthur Liu and his teenage daughter, Alysa.

Arthur’s personal story was an exemplar of the American Dream. As a university student, he took part in the 1989 pro-democracy movement in China. After the crackdown at Tiananmen Square that year, he fled to the United States, settling in California. Arthur poured a small fortune and an equal amount of energy into molding Alysa into a figure skating phenom. As a national champion at age 13, she bantered along with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, and was at the time on track to represent America at the Winter Olympics the following year in Beijing.

Ziburis was surveilling the Liu home when he called Arthur, falsely claiming that he was a member of the US Olympic Committee who needed to discuss upcoming travel to Beijing, Arthur says. Ziburis was adamant that Arthur fax him copies of his and his daughter’s passports as part of a travel “preparedness check,” Liu tells WIRED. This struck Arthur as odd. In his many years dealing with sports bodies, he had never fielded such a request. Alysa’s agent did not respond to a request for comment.

Ziburis’ surveillance of Arthur and Alysa Liu that November day five years ago was just one episode in a bizarre saga that spanned from California to Beijing, touched New York City mayors and members of the US Congress, and has seen two people plead guilty and two more awaiting trial.

Unbeknownst to Ziburis, as he sat outside Aurthur and Alysa’s Northern California home, he too was being watched.

Ziburis had allegedly been dispatched to Northern California by Frank Liu, a self-styled fixer in the Chinese community from Long Island, New York, who was in turn receiving orders from a person in China named Qiang Sun. According to US authorities, Sun was working at the behest of the Chinese government. A concerned private investigator who once worked for Frank Liu had alerted the FBI to Frank’s escapades and was assisting authorities. Law enforcement was already on to Ziburis by the time he arrived. Anthony Ricco, Ziburis’ lawyer, did not respond to requests for comment.

Officers watched as Ziburis surveyed Arthur’s home and visited his law office. The heavy-set man sulking around Arthur’s office also caught the attention of a neighbor, who approached Ziburis and asked him if he needed help, Arthur says. Apparently concerned, the FBI called Arthur to warn him that Ziburis was heading to his home. By then, in part because of the harassment, Arthur and Alysa were boarding a plane to fly out of California. “It was like a movie,” Arthur says.

Alysa’s showing in Beijing in 2022 was disappointing. Burned out, she retired from the sport. Then in February, after returning to the ice after a two year hiatus, Alysa became the first US women’s figure skater to win Olympic gold since 2002—intentionally without her father by her side.

Despite her much-publicized complicated relationship with Arthur, Alysa’s success—punctuated by her signature pierced smile, racoon-tail dye job, and palpable joy for her sport—has reignited interest in the long-running case of transnational repression against her and her father. Human rights advocates and researchers have documented in recent years the lengths Beijing has taken to suppress critical voices, even those residing abroad or whose perceived transgressions date back decades.