CIA Makes New Push To Recruit Chinese Military Officers as Informants
3 72An anonymous reader shares a report: Just weeks after a dramatic purge of China's top general, the CIA is moving to capitalize on any resulting discord with a new public video targeting potential informants in the Chinese military. The U.S. spy agency on Thursday rolled out the video depicting a disillusioned mid-level Chinese military officer, in the latest U.S. step in a campaign to ramp up human intelligence gathering on Washington's strategic rival.
It follows a similar effort last May that focused on fictional figures within China's ruling Communist Party that provided detailed Chinese-language instructions on how to securely contact U.S. intelligence. CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that the agency's videos had reached many Chinese citizens and that it would continue offering Chinese government officials an "opportunity to work toward a brighter future together."
3 comments
Re: Not very subtle (Score: 5, Insightful)
by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @09:47PM (#65986032)
Demoralizing your enemy by making him more concerned about looking over his shoulder than paying attention to you is not a bad strategy.
Re: Not very subtle (Score: 5, Interesting)
by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Friday February 13, 2026 @02:21AM (#65986234)
Correct. Xi is already hyperparanoid. Nobody in the PLA command structure is truly safe. Sowing a little discord could be advantageous.
Dangerous job under the current regime. (Score: 5, Informative)
by Truth_Quark ( 219407 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @10:05PM (#65986050)
The documents that Trump shouldn't have had, and stored on the stage in the ballroom included Information on human sources. [archive.org]
Around that time the CIA had dozens of informant captured and executed. [thehill.com]
So, I'd give it a few years. The current regime is probably going to take your details and sell the information back to China after the next presidential election.