A major leak containing a register with the details of nearly two million CCP members has occurred – exposing members who are now active worldwide, while providing an inside glimpse of party operations under President Xi Jinping, says Sky News Australia's Sharri Markson.
According to the report, the list includes the personal information, including: names, party position, and national IDs of these 'moles' buried within Western corporations and government agencies.
Sky News said this was believed to be the first leak of its kind "exposing communist party members around the world."
"Communist party branches have been set up inside western companies, allowing infiltration by CCP members - who, if called on, are answerable directly to the communist party, and the Chairman himself,” says Markson.
Along with the personal details of these [moles], she points out the existence of "some-79,000 communist party branches, many of them within western firms".
Sky News says the leak is likely to embarrass a long list of global corporations with "no apparent plan to protect themselves from intellectual theft".
The report states that the data was compiled by Chinese dissidents in April of 2016, who used it for counter-intelligence operations. Markson reveals it was eventually turned over to an international consortium of media outlets including The Australian, The UK Sunday Mail, Belgium's De Standaard and a Swedish source for analysis.
Markson stated there was no suggestion of espionage on the part of the dissidents but the question of whether companies and organizations hiring these operators had knowledge of their true identity and attempted to "protect their data and people" was expected to arise in the coming days and weeks.