(Bloomberg) -- The Central Intelligence Agency is boosting its efforts to recruit Chinese citizens as it seeks to capitalize on what US officials say is growing discontent with President Xi Jinping’s rule.
The agency issued Chinese-language instructions on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Telegram, and X on Wednesday, detailing how individuals can securely contact it on its public and dark web sites.
“There are plenty of people who have access to information and who are disaffected from the Xi regime in China,” CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said in an interview.
“You’ve got people inside who see what’s happening, and for lots of different motivations fundamentally do not like the direction that Xi is taking the country and understand that there’s a path to helping their own country by working with us,” Cohen said.
The online push comes as Xi has consolidated power over a fifth of humanity to a degree unseen in decades, abolishing presidential term limits, packing the leadership with close allies, forcing bankers to study Xi Jinping Thought and silencing dissent. The nation also went through years of harsh Covid-Zero rules, which continue to leave a scarring effect on the economy. China’s slowdown has contributed to an uptick in protests.
The US has struggled to gain insights into the workings of the Chinese government, with the Biden administration consistently frustrated by the lack of top-tier intelligence on Xi’s inner circle. As China becomes more opaque, the need for insights into Xi’s decision-making is growing, especially as tensions with Washington heat up over issues like Taiwan and advanced technology.
The CIA and other US intelligence agencies have faced questions about their broader collection capabilities in China. The New York Times in 2017 reported that Beijing had broken up CIA spying operations in the country over several years.
China has also ramped up efforts in recent years to warn the public, government workers and even university students about foreign espionage efforts. It has gone so far as to crack down on weather data getting into the hands of people outside the nation.
Russian Efforts
The latest recruitment push in China echoes the CIA’s effort in Russia in the months after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. That drive publicized Russian-language instructions on how to contact the agency through the dark web and saw CIA produce videos encouraging Russians to volunteer information.
A CIA spokesperson, who asked not to be identified, said its efforts have been successful in Russia. The agency wants individuals in other authoritarian regimes to know it’s open for business. It also posted instructions in Korean and Farsi in a bid to recruit potential informants in North Korea and Iran.
The agency’s promotion of its website on the dark web is also part of an attempt to sidestep the ubiquitous surveillance that has frustrated its attempts in recent years to develop sources who can provide insights into China’s political system.
“China is a techno-authoritarian country,” Cohen said. “There’s an extraordinary amount of scrutiny, not just on our officers or Westerners who happen to be in China.”
The dark web is part of the Internet that can’t be indexed by search engines and can be accessed only by specific browsers that allow anonymous activity.
Cohen said the CIA is continuing efforts to bolster recruitment of Chinese nationals who leave their country, including through Cold War-style walk-ins at US embassies overseas.
The recruitment effort is supported by a growing cadre of CIA China experts around the world, Cohen added, comparing this shift to the US’s cultivation of Soviet experts during the Cold War.
“We are using that same model of ensuring that we are deploying capable officers that are trained both in language and their expertise,” Cohen said. “We want to ensure that they’re not all sitting at headquarters, that they are out in the field.”
Those officers can also develop relationships with friendly foreign governments, Cohen said, helping to warn them of what the US sees as potential threats from Beijing.
The US is “in competition across the board” with China, Cohen said. “We’re competing across all regions from Europe to Africa, Latin America, to the Arctic and the Antarctic.”
--With assistance from Jamie Tarabay.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
