The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a video in Mandarin Chinese on Feb. 12 to recruit Chinese military officers as informants less than a month after the dramatic takedown of the Chinese regime’s top generals.
Analysts told The Epoch Times that the message will resonate well with Chinese military personnel, especially given the timing, as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s purge of top generals has caused widespread discontent among the Chinese military.
It’s the latest move by the U.S. spy agency to intensify its intelligence gathering against the Chinese communist regime, following Xi’s purge of Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, a member of the Central Military Commission and chief of the Joint Staff Department, which was officially announced on Jan. 24.
The new video offers a glimpse into the current state of the Chinese military from the perspective of a fictional mid-level CCP military officer, highlighting the domestic political repercussions of the military purges.
“Their power is built on countless lies,” the fictional officer says in the video, referring to CCP leadership. “But now these walls of lies are gradually crumbling, leaving us to clean up the mess. Anyone with leadership qualities is bound to be subject to suspicion and ruthlessly eliminated.”
This video was released less than a month after Zhang’s downfall, and directly references the instability and anxiety in the military after his arrest.
“These people who have never experienced war are eager to throw us into battles,” the fictional officer continues, clearly referring to Xi versus Zhang and Liu.
Both Zhang and Liu participated in China’s war with Vietnam in 1979, making them the only two generals in the CCP with actual combat experience.
Various departments of the Central Military Commission and major CCP military commands have been silent about Xi’s purge of the two top generals—unlike previous incidents in which they expressed support almost immediately through official statements. Analysts say the unusual silence indicates that the situation is not settled and that dissent is growing within the military.
At the end of the video, driven by his personal belief as a professional soldier to “defend the people and safeguard the motherland,” and seeking a better future for his daughter, the officer passed intelligence to the CIA.
Timely Message
The CIA has seized the opportunity to see if officers are willing to defect following the purges, Su Tzu-yun, researcher and director of Division of Defense Strategy and Resources at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said of the video.“Especially the takedown of Zhang Youxia was clearly not about corruption but a political purge,” he told The Epoch Times.
“Only military personnel truly understand the risks of war. Xi Jinping has never fought a war, yet he arrested Zhang Youxia, who had battlefield experience. If Xi is irresponsible and allows people with no battlefield experience to command, he may plunge China into war,” Su said.
The CIA specifically tailored the video for CCP military personnel based on the current changes within China’s military, the morale of its officers, and the Taiwan Strait situation following Zhang’s arrest, Shen Ming-shih, research fellow at the Division of National Security Research at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times.
“The risk of those who are already desperate and willing to revolt is too high. If they can obtain personal safety through the CIA, become U.S. citizens or refugees, and simultaneously promote changes within mainland China, this would be a very good thing,” Shen said of the effect of the video.
Su said that the presentation of the CIA video is like planting a seed, “since the CIA provides a secure network, giving these officers who want change a channel to expose the illegal activities of Xi Jinping or his associates.”
He said that the morale of the Chinese people, officials, and military should now be in complete turmoil.
Su said that the CIA’s recruitment video aims at achieving victory without fighting by awakening the conscience of CCP military personnel.
4th Video in a Year
This is the fourth recruitment video that CIA has released in months targeting people within the CCP’s system.In January of this year, following the Trump administration’s operation to arrest Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the CIA released a new video for Chinese officials who were willing to provide intelligence to the United States, demonstrating how to securely contact the CIA via the internet. It attracted 64 million views in one month.
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.”
Shen said that the CIA has been pushing out multiple recruitment videos in a short period of time, indicating that “the United States is paying close attention to changes within the CCP and is able to grasp the current thoughts of specific groups or individuals.”
He said the CIA was using this opportunity to recruit more people within the CCP to provide intelligence. “Just like the arrest of Maduro in Venezuela, this could be helpful for the United States to understand the changing power struggles within the CCP and take further action,” he said.
In light of recent incidents involving U.S. military personnel spying for the CCP, Mark Cao, a U.S.-based military tech analyst, former materials engineer, and host of Chinese-language military news YouTube channel Mark Space, warned that despite the CIA’s efforts, U.S. intelligence gathering in mainland China is much weaker than that of the CCP in the United States.
“The CCP doesn’t need to release such recruitment videos targeting the U.S. military or government, since it has various ways to infiltrate and for spying,” he told The Epoch Times.
