Provocative CIA video sparks fire within the Chinese military
Just weeks after the dramatic purge of China's top general, the CIA is moving to exploit potential internal fractures with a new public video targeting prospective informants within the Chinese military. The American intelligence agency released the video depicting a disillusioned mid-level officer in the Chinese army, marking Washington’s latest push to bolster human intelligence collection against its primary strategic rival. This effort follows a similar project last May, which focused on fictional characters within the Chinese Communist Party, providing detailed instructions in Mandarin on how to securely contact US intelligence services.
"Job opportunities"
CIA Director John Ratcliffe stated in a release that the agency's videos have reached numerous Chinese citizens and that the CIA will continue to offer Chinese government officials "the opportunity to work together for a brighter future." Last month, the Chinese Ministry of Defense announced that Zhang Youxia, second-in-command under Xi as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), is under investigation—the most high-profile removal of a senior Chinese military figure in decades.
The short CIA video, posted on its YouTube channel, appears aimed at exploiting the internal political turmoil caused by Beijing's multi-year anti-corruption campaign in the military, which has hit the upper echelons of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) beyond Zhang. "Anyone with leadership qualities is inevitably suspect and will be relentlessly eliminated," says the fictional officer in the video in Mandarin. "Their power is built on countless lies," he adds, referring to his superiors.
Piercing the Great Firewall
The CIA has stated it is confident that the online campaign is piercing the restrictions of the Chinese "Great Firewall" and reaching its intended audience. "Our previous videos reached millions of people and inspired new sources," a senior CIA official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, without providing further details. The CIA has invested significantly in countering China and has attempted to rebuild its spy network in the country following devastating actions by Beijing, which reportedly killed or imprisoned many American informants between 2010 and 2012.
US officials report that Chinese intelligence services have worked tirelessly to recruit current and former US employees, and in recent years, Beijing has been publishing evidence of what it claims are American espionage networks detected in China. These high-stakes games of espionage are part of an escalating military and technological confrontation that many observers view as a new form of Cold War.
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