China condemns CIA recruitment videos as 'provocation', vows retaliation

By Ryan Chua

  China condemned the Central Intelligence Agency’s attempts to recruit its disenchanted citizens and warned of retaliation, days after the release of videos encouraging officials to spy for the US. 

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, called the CIA’s campaign “a serious infringement on China’s national interest and pure political provocation.”

 

“China strongly condemns it,” Lin told reporters. “We will take all measures necessary to resolutely push back infiltration and sabotage activities from overseas and defend national sovereignty, security and development interest.” 

 

The Chinese Embassy in Washington later reposted Lin’s statement on X in response to a CIA post promoting the videos.

The videos, part of an effort by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to bolster intelligence collection on China, depict Chinese officials disillusioned by the direction of the country and fearful of their prospects making the decision to contact the CIA. It follows the release last year of text-only videos in Mandarin, Farsi and Korean providing instructions on how to make contact with American intelligence operatives. 

 

A CIA official told Bloomberg the agency intends to encourage Chinese citizens to share confidential information about their government’s security apparatus and economic and foreign policy, as well as technology, military and cyber programs.

 

“No adversary in the history of our nation has presented a more formidable challenge or capable strategic competitor than the Chinese Communist Party,” Ratcliffe said in an emailed statement last week. “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.”

 

US spy agencies have faced questions about their broader intelligence collection capabilities regarding China. In 2017, the New York Times reported that Beijing had broken up CIA spying operations in the country over several years.