CIA Video Campaign Seeks Spies From China

 

 

“HONG KONG -- The Central Intelligence Agency released a new video on Thursday seeking to capitalize on upheaval at the top of China's armed forces to recruit potential spies.

 

The 95-second Mandarin-language video shows an officer walking through a military installation musing about ruthless power struggles at the top of the armed forces.

 

"What the leaders are truly protecting is only their own selfish interests," the narrator states. "Their power is built on countless lies. But now, these walls of lies are crumbling, leaving us only to clean up the mess."

 

The highly produced video was released less than a month after Chinese leader Xi Jinping purged two top generals, including his highest-ranking deputy in the military, Gen. Zhang Youxia.

 

The video contains apparent references to Zhang, who was one of the few senior Chinese military officers with combat experience -- from the conflict with Vietnam that started in 1979 -- and was seen as a capable leader.

 

"Anyone with leadership ability will inevitably be feared and ruthlessly eliminated," the narrator says. "I cannot allow these madmen to shape my daughter's future world."

 

Xi has removed more than 60 high-level officers and defense-industry executives since 2023, according to a review of official disclosures by The Wall Street Journal.

 

The turmoil has left the Central Military Commission, the top entity that controls the military, with just two members: Xi himself and the head of the military's body for internal investigations.

 

The video concludes with the officer opening a laptop while parked in an isolated spot and calling up a page that says "Contact the CIA" in Chinese. The closing credits display a CIA address on Tor, an anonymizing network.

 

In addition to its effort to reap intelligence, the campaign could aim to sow uneasiness within a Chinese military that has been reeling from leadership purges.

 

The CIA released a pair of similar videos last year that targeted Communist Party officials, seeking to appeal to concerns about lack of advancement or arbitrary purges.

 

The CIA posted the videos on YouTube, which is blocked in China, as are many other Western social-media and news sites. Those sites can be accessed using VPNs, and the CIA's advertisements occasionally run in Hong Kong, where YouTube isn't blocked.

 

It isn't clear whether the CIA has had any success with the video campaign. The CIA's efforts in China were devastated when nearly two dozen assets were executed or imprisoned more than a decade ago, leaving the agency struggling to rebuild its human-espionage capabilities in China.

 

The CIA didn't reply to a request for comment.

 

China's Ministry of State Security denounced the CIA's videos last year, saying they were "riddled with clumsy rhetoric and slanderous language, laying bare the absurd logic and hysterical frenzy of U.S. intelligence agencies' defection schemes."

 

U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies say Beijing carries out its own extensive spying operations overseas and aggressive hacking campaigns on sensitive targets.” [1]

 

1. World News: CIA Video Campaign Seeks Spies From China. Austin Ramzy.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 14 Feb 2026: A7.