中文
By Xin Ping
The United States has long relied on covert operations to infiltrate and undermine China. Yet on October 2, 2024, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) posted a video in Mandarin titled "Securely Contacting CIA" on social media platforms like X, Facebook, and Telegram. It openly encouraged people in China and other countries to provide "information that could be of interest to the CIA," marking a stark departure from its traditional clandestine practices.
While describing informants' safety and well-being as its foremost consideration, the CIA warned that a response could not be guaranteed or could take time.
Netizens were quick to mock the CIA's approach as "trying to get something for nothing." Here is one comment – "It is highly likely that if you contact the CIA at great peril, you will likely be ignored. Even if you are approached, you will be discarded the moment your value is exhausted." Spot on!
Such a brazen approach of soliciting spies is astonishing. It is not only a provocation against China but also a blatant violation of the international order.
A long history of espionage against China
The CIA's espionage activities against China date back to the founding of the People's Republic of China. Back in the 1950s, the agency trained and funded "Tibet independence" forces and supported armed uprisings against the central government. It also groomed spies and political bandits in Xinjiang and provided them with funds and weapons. During the Korean War, it even airdropped agents into the northeastern region in China to gather intelligence. All these attempts ended in failure.
In recent years, in support of the U.S. government's strategy of containing China, the CIA has established a China Mission Center, doubled its budget for China-focused operations – according to its boss William Burns – and stepped up efforts to recruit and train Chinese-speaking employees. It has formed a special agent team tasked to use false online personas to spread negative information about the Chinese government and wage cognitive warfare against China.
The CIA has also launched systematic, intelligent, and covert cyber-attacks against key Chinese agencies, and tried to cultivate anti-China agents among Chinese students and visiting scholars in the U.S. and employees of Chinese military industrial enterprises. Unsurprisingly, their attempts have met with strong countermeasures from China's national security department, dealing a heavy blow to the CIA's spy network in China.
CIA at its wit's end
Of course, the Americans do not readily accept failure. In July 2023, William Burns revealed that "progress has been made" in rebuilding U.S. intelligence networks in China, but what happened afterward quickly contradicted his claim. In just one month, the Chinese security agency announced that it had cracked two CIA espionage cases, exposing the names and positions of U.S. intelligence personnel involved and detailing their methods of recruiting agents from key Chinese agencies.
This may explain why the CIA is shifting from a covert to an overt recruitment strategy. Public recruitment is not so much an upgrade of intelligence tactics as a last resort after repeated setbacks.
A thief crying "stop thief"
While engaging in espionage activities against China, the U.S. has been working relentlessly to spread disinformation to mislead the general public and create hostility against China. This is a common tactic the U.S. has employed in waging its information war against China.
Not long ago, the U.S. claimed that Chinese-made port cranes might be used to carry out espionage activities and even claimed that refrigerators, baggage scanners, and power transformers from China pose national security risks to the U.S., without providing any substantive evidence. In August, the U.S. released a new National Counterintelligence Strategy, listing China and Russia as the "most significant intelligence threats," which is a typical case of the thief crying "stop thief."
The U.S. also continues to spread lies about China's new anti-espionage law, claiming that it "generalizes national security" and "raises foreign business risks."
What the U.S. never mentions is its own extensive espionage laws, including the Espionage Act of 1917, which has been amended over 10 times. Such double standards expose the hypocrisy of U.S. criticism and underscore the necessity of China's efforts to counter foreign infiltration.
Every country has its legitimate national security concerns and is entitled to defend its national sovereignty and security. In the face of persistent espionage activities by the U.S., China will not hesitate to take decisive countermeasures. It is time for the U.S. to realize that one nation's security cannot be achieved at the expense of others' and that it should abandon its hegemonic practices.
Xin Ping is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News Agency, CGTN, Global Times, China Daily, etc.
