CIA Publishes Mandarin Videos to Recruit Chinese Informants
The CIA has released two videos in Mandarin aimed at encouraging Chinese officials to share secrets with the United States. The videos were posted on Thursday on the agency’s social media accounts.
The first video targets senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials who may be experiencing discontent within the government’s upper ranks.
The video shows a senior party official describing how colleagues are frequently removed from power. “As I rise within the party, I watch those above me being discarded like worn-out shoes, but now I realize that my fate was just as precarious as theirs,” the narrator says.
“My family’s fate cannot rest in their hands,” he continues, before the video shows him using a tablet to contact the CIA. The video ends with instructions on how to contact the CIA through secure channels, including the dark web.
The second video targets junior-level officers within the CPP. It highlights how these lower-ranking officials have limited opportunities for advancement and suggests that their efforts primarily serve the interests of the CCP’s ruling elite.
A CIA official told Reuters, “If it weren’t working, we wouldn’t be making more videos.” The official described China as the agency’s top intelligence target in what they called a “generational competition.”
U.S. intelligence agencies said in March that China is the top military and cyber threat to the United States. Officials noted that Beijing has the ability to strike the U.S. with conventional weapons, conduct cyberattacks on infrastructure, and challenge American interests in space.
The videos are part of a broader CIA campaign that began around October 2023, aimed at recruiting sources in adversarial countries such as China, Iran, and North Korea.
China’s embassy in Washington has not commented on the videos. In the past, Chinese officials have accused the U.S. of spreading disinformation and trying to divide the Chinese people from the Communist Party.
