CIA wants Chinese spies to ‘watch this to watch them’
US intelligence agency rolls out glitzy social media videos to attract ‘senior officials’ as agents
Senior Chinese Communist Party officials are being targeted by Washington’s Central Intelligence Agency to become “spies like us.” Behind the CIA drive are glitzy, Hollywood-style social media videos in Mandarin with Chinese subtitles to tempt recruits.
The move is part of a “bold public pitch to lure disaffected bureaucrats” amid President Xi Jinping’s never-ending purge of high-ranking Party members.
“[The videos are] aimed at recruiting Chinese officials to steal secrets. [Beijing] is intent on dominating the world economically, militarily, and technologically,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement.
“Our agency must continue responding to this threat with urgency, creativity, and grit, and these videos are just one of the ways we are doing this,” he told The Associated Press.
Secret Army:
- Washington and its allies are locked in a secret surveillance war with Beijing.
- Earlier this year, Christopher Wray warned of the risks posed by China’s industrial-scale “technology theft” before stepping down as FBI Director.
- “[China has] stolen more of our personal and corporate data than every nation, big or small, combined,” he said.
Given the chaos of the US now, I can’t imagine recruiting anyone is [easy].
Valerie Plame, former CIA covert agent
Delve deeper: Washington is still struggling to catch up more than a decade after reports surfaced that intelligence operations inside China had been “systematically dismantled.” Nothing much has changed since then.
Between the lines: “Given the chaos of the US now, especially in the intel services … I can’t imagine recruiting anyone, much less a Chinese asset, is any easier,” former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame told CBC News via email.
Big picture: For the moment, Washington appears to be frozen out by Beijing in Cold War 2.0 as tensions escalate between the two capitals. As Emily Harding, a former CIA leadership analyst, told ABC News, “China is a particularly hard target.”
China Factor comment: High-tech theft has been a key driver in propelling China into an economic and military superpower. Now, the US needs Chinese spies who are willing to stay out in the cold.