The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States has embarked on a social media initiative aimed at convincing Chinese officials to abandon their autocratic regime and leak confidential information to the U.
S.
The CIA's inaugural video was captioned, Reasons for cooperation: creating a better future.
The videos also highlight the potential threat of a brutal purge by the Communist Party faced by any Chinese official. The YouTube description of the CIA video portrays a man who has "diligently worked his way to the top throughout his life" only to find that his elevated status is "insufficient to protect his family in these turbulent and unsettling times."
The character in the video reflects, My purpose remains the same. Only my path has changed. No matter what my fate may bring, my family will know a good life. This scenario is not far from reality, as evidenced by the recent disappearance of China's highest-ranking military officer.
Another fictional Chinese official in the videos voices his disillusionment with the Communist Party, stating, The party raised us to believe that our dedication to the path they lead us on would bring prosperity to us all. But the gains of our collective efforts are indulged by a select few. So, I must forge my own path, before contacting the CIA.
According to Breitbart, the CIA videos are designed to exploit the two major fears of lower- and middle-level Chinese government officials: being stuck in a low-ranking job serving an increasingly corrupt wealthy official, or falling victim to the relentless purges that have targeted millions of party members at all levels since Xi Jinping assumed power.
The CIA also capitalizes on the growing concern among Xi's subjects that their export-based economy, already severely impacted by the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, could be further crippled by President Donald Trump's tariffs. As one video's narrator states, Our leaders failure to fulfil repeated promises of prosperity has become a well-known secret.
This outreach to potential Chinese informants aligns with CIA Director John Ratcliffes objective of cultivating more human intelligence within the highly suspicious People's Republic of China.
Ratcliffe warned CIA officers in April, No adversary in the history of our nation has presented a more formidable challenge or a more capable strategic competitor than the Chinese Communist Party. It is intent on dominating the world economically, militarily, and technologically, and it is aggressively trying to outcompete America in every corner of the globe.
The devastation of U.S. intelligence networks in China during the Obama administration is a fact that American media organizations prefer to overlook. Between 2010 and 2012, Chinese state security eliminated at least a dozen CIA sources, executing one in front of his colleagues as a warning against disloyalty.
U.S. intelligence in China suffered another significant setback during the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack in 2015, another of Obama's fiascos. President Barack Obama, his top officials, and his media worked tirelessly to conceal the full extent of the damage from the hack of U.S. personnel records. However, the impact was nothing short of catastrophic and undoubtedly aided China in identifying American assets. The CIA was compelled to withdraw agents from China as the OPM hack revealed personal information about numerous State Department employees, enabling the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) to compile a database of potential intelligence agents working for U.S. diplomatic facilities.
The Biden administration sparked a diplomatic row when its CIA director, William Burns, asserted in late 2023 that he was making progress toward rebuilding a strong human intelligence capability in China. The Chinese government condemned Burns' unusually candid remarks and then scoured the vast Beijing bureaucracy to locate the agents and operatives Burns claimed he was recruiting.
There is scant evidence that the Biden administration made significant strides in rebuilding human intelligence networks in China, as it openly favored cyber intelligence operations. Ratcliffe appeared unimpressed by the Biden teams achievements when he assumed leadership of the CIA for the second Trump administration.
Ratcliffe told the House Intelligence Committee in March, I think our collection against China is a hard target. In the prior administration, it was lacking in several areas. I would say primarily in human collection and also with regard to the processing of open source information relating to China.
CIA officials believe their social media campaign, which extends to platforms more readily accessible in China, will be successful. A similar CIA social media campaign to recruit Russian informants over the past two years was successful enough to infuriate the Kremlin and prompt the Russian equivalent of the CIA, the SVR, to counter with its own recruiting videos.
The CIA's YouTube video last year, which provided instructions in Mandarin for contacting the agency via the dark web, garnered over 900,000 views, encouraging the CIA to launch the recruiting campaign unveiled this week.
A CIA official told Reuters on Thursday, If it werent working, we wouldnt be making more videos.
Another reason to produce the videos is to agitate dictator Xi Jinping. Anxious leaders are prone to making mistakes and alienating subordinates they cannot afford to lose. As the CIA videos highlight, Xi has never hesitated to imprison his underlings.
Chinese dissident property tycoon Desmond Shum described the CIA's new campaign as the most aggressive public move against China he could recall, and suggested that the audacity of the campaign could unsettle Xi.
Shum told Al Jazeera News on Friday, This kind of public outreach is exactly the sort of provocation that enrages the CCP and Xi Jinping personally. His obsession with lifelong rule stems from a singular goal: to secure the Partys unshakable control over China.
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