China Casts CIA as Villain in New Anti-Spying Push
State-security ministry accuses two Chinese citizens of spying for U.S. as espionage fears grip both countries
By Chun Han Wong Updated Aug. 24, 2023 The Wall Street Journal
SINGAPORE—Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expanding a campaign to harden the country against foreign efforts to steal its secrets, with his spymasters warning citizens abroad to guard against enticement from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
The Ministry of State Security—China’s main civilian intelligence agency—recently accused two Chinese nationals of spying for the U.S., saying both were recruited by the CIA while living overseas. It publicized the cases soon after CIA Director William Burns said the agency had made progress in rebuilding its spy network in China, an assertion that drew widespread attention on Chinese social media.
The disclosures are part of the Chinese state-security ministry’s first-ever public foray on social media, where it has solicited the public’s help in fighting espionage and other threats to national security. In its debut post on the popular do-everything app WeChat on Aug. 1, titled “Counterespionage Requires Mobilization of an Entire Society,” it urged ordinary Chinese to help build a “people’s line of defense for national security.”
The ministry’s social-media offensive lands amid rising tensions and mutual distrust between the U.S. and China, with each power portraying the other as a strategic threat. Both sides have also traded spying allegations, with Washington accusing Beijing of running cyberattacks and espionage efforts against American targets, and vice versa.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray, for instance, has cast China as a major source of spying threats against the U.S., saying last year that his agency had about 2,000 ongoing investigations that potentially involved Beijing, and on average was opening two new China-related counterintelligence probes a day.
China’s counterespionage publicity drive reflects the exalted position that national security has acquired under Xi, who has made it a priority even over economic growth. Chinese authorities have appeared particularly concerned about locking down flows of information they see as potentially compromising security, even as foreign businesses say Beijing’s opacity is discouraging them from investing more in the country.
Earlier this year, the government raided the Beijing offices of the New York-based due-diligence firm Mintz Group and detained all of its Chinese staff. Regulators recently ordered Mintz to pay roughly $1.5 million in financial penalties for conducting “foreign-related statistical investigations” without authorization.
In a throwback to the Cold War, a time when governments routinely warned citizens to be on the lookout for spies, the Chinese state-security ministry is promising to make it easier for members of the public to report suspicious behavior and educate the masses about security threats using real-life cases.
Beijing has voiced the most concern about spying by the U.S. In the early 2010s, a U.S. intelligence breach allowed China to dismantle a major American spy network in the country, where authorities jailed about 20 CIA informants and executed an unknown number of them, according to former U.S. officials familiar with the episode.
CIA Director Burns told a security forum in July that his agency has “made progress” in rebuilding its intelligence operations in China. Hashtags related to Burns’s remarks garnered millions of views on Chinese social media, with many users blasting what they saw as American hypocrisy in spying on China while hyping up Chinese espionage threats.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman later said that Burns’s July comment was “rather concerning” and that China will “take all measures necessary to safeguard national security.”
In early August, American officials announced the arrest of two U.S. Navy sailors who allegedly provided Beijing with military secrets after they were approached by Chinese intelligence officers.
That’s when Beijing began to strike back with its own disclosures. On Aug. 11, the state-security ministry published a WeChat post saying a Chinese national, surnamed Zeng, working for a Chinese military-industrial group was recently detained for giving sensitive information to the CIA.
On Monday, the ministry revealed another case, this time involving a Chinese bureaucrat—surnamed Hao—who also allegedly provided intelligence to the CIA.
The CIA declined to comment.
According to the ministry, the CIA recruited Zeng and Hao while they were studying abroad in Italy and Japan, respectively. Both suspects became acquainted with officials at the local U.S. Embassy, who cultivated close relationships with the two Chinese nationals and eventually persuaded them to help gather intelligence on behalf of the U.S. government.
Zeng, now 52 years old, agreed to provide sensitive information on the Chinese military in return for large rewards and the promise that Zeng’s family can migrate to the U.S., the ministry said. Hao, now 39, agreed to try joining a Chinese ministerial-level government agency, and went on to supply intelligence to the U.S. in return for fees, according to the ministry.
The ministry said Zeng’s case has been transferred to prosecutors, while investigations into Hao’s case were continuing. The ministry didn’t provide any other identifying information about Zeng and Hao, apart from their birth month and year. “Any illegal and criminal acts that endanger national security shall be severely punished by law,” the ministry said.
The ministry’s WeChat account has also pumped out a stream of rousing content, from slickly produced videos to chest-thumping screeds that denounce foreign hostile forces trying to contain China.
In one recent WeChat post, the ministry accused the U.S. of being selfish and hypocritical in smearing China’s efforts to protect its interests. Another post, titled “National security is for you, and depends on you,” featured stirring footage—showing daily lives, military operations and scenic frontier landscapes across China, as well as cultural heritage like Beijing opera—that appealed to a sense of duty among citizens.
“Your choices are closely tied to the nation’s choices, your fate is closely tied to the nation’s fate,” the video’s narration said. “To protect the nation’s security is to protect yourself.”
Warren P. Strobel contributed to this article.
Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com
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Appeared in the August 25, 2023, print edition as 'Beijing Casts CIA as Villain in Anti-Spying Push'.