How US's Central Intelligence Agency Is Trying To Recruit Chinese Officials

The US's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has released two cinematic recruitment videos in a step aimed at deepening its intelligence reach inside China. The videos, which are just over two minutes long and are presented in Mandarin with Chinese subtitles, represent a major shift in the CIA's approach to hiring officials in China.

The US views China as its main military and strategic adversary.

One of the videos portrays the internal turmoil of a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official. The video shows the official is haunted by the growing unpredictability of Chinese President Xi Jinping's sweeping anti-corruption drive.

“As I rise within the party, I watch those above me being discarded like worn-out shoes, but now I realise that my fate was just as precarious as theirs,” the narrator reflects, accompanied by visuals of surveillance and hushed anxiety.

The other video is about a young government employee disillusioned by the stark gap between the party's promises and the lived reality of common citizens. The protagonist toils through bureaucratic drudgery and late nights, only to return to a cramped apartment shared with his parents.

“From a young age, the party taught us that as long as we diligently followed the path laid out by our leaders, we would have a bright future,” the narrator laments.

Both narratives culminate with the characters reaching out to the CIA through its secure online platform — an invitation introduced by the agency last year through a simple text video. That previous effort provided step-by-step instructions in Chinese for contacting the agency. It formed part of a broader campaign to gather intelligence from hard-to-penetrate countries like China, Iran and North Korea.

Both videos can be found on YouTube and are titled in Chinese. One is called, “Why I contacted the CIA: to take control of my fate,” and the other is titled, “Why I contacted the CIA: for a better life.”

Watch the videos here:

These videos reflect a more aggressive push in CIA's outreach initiatives. It shows the agency's conviction that, in spite of strict internet regulations, its messaging is effectively reaching audiences within China.

“If it weren't working, we wouldn't be making more videos,” Reuters quoted a CIA official as saying.

The official said that the US was not just interested in counterintelligence, but was also seeking information on advanced science, military and cyber technology, valuable economic data, and China's foreign policy secrets.

China has not officially responded to the campaign.