The CIA has released a pair of videos online as part of efforts to recruit Chinese officials who are dissatisfied with corruption and political repression at home.
The slickly-produced Chinese-language videos show a midlevel official serving a corrupt and wealthy boss, and another showing a highly placed official anxious that he’ll be caught up in one of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drives.
The videos, titled “Why I contacted the CIA: to take control of my fate” and “Why I contacted the CIA: for a better life,” were posted on YouTube and other social media platforms.
In both videos, the officials are then shown contacting the CIA to escape their predicament. The videos contain information on how to securely contact the CIA via the dark web.
In a statement Thursday cited by The New York Times, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the new videos were aimed at “recruiting Chinese officials to steal secrets.”
“Our agency must continue responding to this threat with urgency, creativity, and grit, and these videos are just one of the ways we are doing this,” he said.
The CIA has resorted to similar techniques in the past.
The videos resemble ones posted online in recent years targeting Russian officials disaffected by corruption and the war in Ukraine, which the CIA said were successful in attracting new sources.
The CIA also released a more basic text-based video last year, also in Mandarin, giving instructions on contacting the agency via the dark web.
It has also released videos in Farsi, which is spoken in Iran, and Korean.
As part of his confirmation hearing in January, Ratcliffe said the CIA under his tenure would intensify its focus on “the threats posed by China and its ruling Chinese Communist Party.”
Ratcliffe said that confronting the rise of China was the US’s top strategic priority, and he told those present that the CIA would focus more efforts on human intelligence, or obtaining information directly from individuals.
China has also been accused of waging a widespread espionage campaign in the US, aimed at stealing technological, military, and industrial secrets.
According to a survey of Chinese espionage incidents since 2000, compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, this involves hacking, gaining secrets from human sources, and influence campaigns.
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