"Do you have access to information on economic, fiscal, or trade policies of China? Do you work in the defense industry? In areas related to national security, diplomacy, science, or advanced technology? Do you associate with people who do?"
With these questions, a series of videos in Mandarin released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States begin. "Please contact us. The information you provide is very important," conclude the recordings, which include detailed instructions for Chinese citizens to transmit sensitive information to the agency in an encrypted and supposedly secure manner.
The latest of these videos, lasting just over two minutes, was published on various Western social networks on January 15th. "Before contacting us, carefully evaluate your situation. Consider if you have valuable information, for example, on government, military, or economic matters. Use public WiFi networks or locations away from home or work to avoid traceability. Avoid using devices, accounts, or personal networks that may be monitored. Use tools like VPN, Tor browser, or secure proxy servers to mask your IP and location," it details.
On Saturday, numerous Chinese users commented on the videos following an alert issued on an official WeChat channel - the Chinese equivalent of WhatsApp - by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing's main intelligence agency. "The CIA is trying to recruit Chinese spies with ridiculous videos," the statement mocked, warning of increased foreign espionage activities.
Since Donald Trump's return to the White House last year, the exchange of espionage accusations between the two largest world powers has intensified, especially in recent months. Last week, Patrick Wei, a former U.S. Marine, was sentenced to 17 years in prison after being found guilty of selling military secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer who allegedly paid him $12,000 for the information.
Wei, 25, was arrested in 2023 while working as a machinist's mate on the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, based in San Diego, California. According to U.S. authorities, he had security clearance and access to highly sensitive information on national defense, including details of the ship's weapon systems, propulsion, and desalination.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice also reported the case of Chenguang Gong, an alleged Chinese spy who had worked as a defense contractor in Silicon Valley and admitted to transferring over 3,600 files with blueprints of sensors designed to detect hypersonic, ballistic, and nuclear missiles.
Another case is that of Xu Zewei, detained at Milan airport at Washington's request, accused of participating in the 2020 hacking of a Texas university's systems to steal research on Covid-19 vaccines, allegedly with the support of Chinese authorities.
Immediately after Xu's arrest, the MSS from Beijing announced that they had dismantled "three foreign espionage plans." One of the cases referred to an official named Li. "Unable to resist the seductive beauty of a foreign intelligence agent, Li was blackmailed with intimate photos and forced to steal confidential documents," the statement said, detailing that Li has been sentenced to five years in prison for espionage.
U.S. media outlets shared a study conducted a few months ago by Recorded Future's Insikt Group, a cybersecurity research group backed by Washington, detailing how Chinese intelligence services are now investing mainly in artificial intelligence to create new tools that enhance the efficiency and accuracy of their intelligence analysis, allowing them to collect more information and analyze it more quickly.
Researchers reviewed Chinese army patent applications and publicly available contracts, discovering that they were widely using advanced national manufacturing linguistic models like DeepSeek.
The Chinese response was not long in coming. After the report was published, state media and channels affiliated with the Communist Party emphasized that the CIA and other U.S. agencies have also intensified the use of AI, both for data analysis and to facilitate the cover-up of agents abroad. As an example, they pointed out that the Pentagon recently awarded a $200 million contract to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
The Ministry of State Security's WeChat channel frequently publishes stories about the latest "spy plots" thwarted by authorities. One of the most recent describes a local official who allegedly photographed confidential documents and sold the images to foreign intelligence agencies to recover savings lost due to a gambling addiction.
"Foreign spies have become increasingly active in their attempts to infiltrate and steal secrets from China," warns the MSS, emphasizing that public officials are the main targets. "If our ideals and convictions are not firm, we may end up falling into the criminal abyss designed by foreign intelligence agencies," it concludes.
Last summer, U.S. federal prosecutors charged two Chinese citizens with attempting to recruit Navy personnel to leak classified information to the MSS. The FBI arrested them in Oregon and Texas after an alleged payment of $10,000 for military secrets. A few weeks earlier, three Chinese researchers were detained in Michigan for allegedly forging documents and attempting to bring dangerous biological materials into the country. Additionally, two active-duty U.S. soldiers were accused of conspiring to sell highly classified information to Beijing.