Key points
- CIA last week released a number of videos aimed at “recruiting Chinese officials”
- China strongly condemns the release of videos
- US and China have long traded accusations of espionage
ISLAMABAD: China on Tuesday condemned recruitment adverts by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asking disillusioned Chinese officials to share state secrets as a “naked political provocation”.
ICYMI yesterday CIA released two Mandarin-language videos aimed at recruiting Chinese officials to help the U.S.https://t.co/ahKjpiyBvG
— CIA (@CIA) May 2, 2025
“The United States not only maliciously smears and attacks China, but also openly deceives and lures Chinese personnel to surrender, even directly targeting Chinese government officials,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said, according to AFP.
ICYMI @CIADirector John Ratcliffe spoke exclusively with @FoxNews about CIA’s efforts to recruit Chinese officials.https://t.co/5v3EJwWoq5
— CIA (@CIA) May 2, 2025
The US intelligence agency last week released a number of videos it said were aimed at “recruiting Chinese officials to help the US”.
Today @FoxNews reported our release of two videos in Mandarin aimed at recruiting Chinese assets.@CIADirector John Ratcliffe: “This is just one of many ways that we’re adjusting our tradecraft at the CIA.”
View the videos here:https://t.co/mhQbzet5X2 pic.twitter.com/myGlDWO8XQ
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2025
CIA director John Ratcliffe said the cinematic videos were “just one of many ways that we’re adjusting our tradecraft at the CIA”.
“Despicable methods”
According to AFP, Beijing on Tuesday said the United States used “various despicable methods to steal secrets of other countries, interfere in other countries’ internal affairs and undermine other countries’ political power”.
“The videos released by the US Central Intelligence Agency on social media are another self-confession with solid evidence of this,” Lin said.
“China strongly condemns this,” he added.
The United States and China have long traded accusations of espionage. According to a Xinhua news agency’s report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in 2023 that “When it comes to surveillance, it’s necessary to point out the United States is the world’s No 1 surveillance state.”
US “secret agents”
Last month, according to AFP, security officials said they had implicated three US “secret agents” in cyberattacks during February’s Asian Winter Games in the northeastern city of Harbin.
And in March, China’s ministry of state security said it had sentenced to death a former engineer for leaking state secrets to an unnamed foreign power.
Beijing on Tuesday vowed to take “necessary measures to resolutely crack down on the infiltration and sabotage activities of foreign anti-China forces”.
China will “firmly safeguard national sovereignty, development and security interests”, Lin said, according to AFP.
Interestingly, back in 2022, according to BBC, in that year alone, US officials charged at least 12 people – including several American citizens – with stalking, harassing and spying on US residents for China.
A RAND report published in April 2025, stated: Much in the same way that China’s hackers graduated from stealing trade secrets to building sophisticated cyber weapons, its spies in the United States may be developing the skills to physically sabotage critical infrastructure during a conflict.
