In a strange and highly visible campaign, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has gone online with a bold new approach: creating cool, Hollywood-quality videos designed to recruit Chinese government officials who might feel disaffected or trapped in the system.
These brief videos, made with cinematic style, are part of a broader effort to restore the CIA’s once-tarnished spy network within China. CIA Director John Ratcliffe underscored the magnitude of the task:
“No adversary in the history of our nation has presented a more formidable challenge or a more capable strategic competitor than the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “It is determined to control the world economically, militarily and technologically, and it is actively attempting to surpass America in all corners of the world.”
Ratcliffe further stated that the agency needs to move with ‘urgency, creativity and grit’, terming the videos one of multiple tools being utilized to counter the CCP.
What do the Videos Reveal?
Two three-minute videos in the Mandarin language have been posted on YouTube and circulated extensively on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, and X. The titles, ‘Why I Contacted CIA: To Take Control of My Fate’ and ‘Why I Contacted CIA: For a Better Life’, are indicative of the psychological thrust the CIA is taking while targeting possible recruits.
The first movie is designed for senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders and shows a character haunted by worries about political purges from President Xi Jinping. “I see my position rise within the party as those above me are cast aside,” a narrator says. “But now I realise that my fate is just as precarious.”
Watch here:
选择合作的原因：成为命运的主宰者https://t.co/4BsFttl79P pic.twitter.com/mjA3wPJdzT
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2025
As agents close in, the character balances his future and the safety of his family. The video concludes with him secretly contacting the CIA and the message, “Grasp your fate in your hands.”
The second video speaks to younger party workers, depicting their anger at being trapped in jobs that mostly benefit the elite. “Failure of our leaders to keep these repeated promises of prosperity has become an open secret,” the narrator says, before concluding: “The first step in a journey is always the hardest. It’s time I begin working towards my own goals.”
Take a look:
CIA releases recruiting vids in Mandarin, tells potential turncoats to ‘take the first step’
Offers Chinese officials a path out of ‘hardship and toil’
FLASHBACK: China identified/arrested/executed every CIA spy in country in 2010
Will anyone take the risk? pic.twitter.com/qnaDtfXiD0
— RT (@RT_com) May 1, 2025
It concludes on an inspiring note: “Heaven helps those who help themselves. Your destiny is in your hands.”
A Response to Past Failures in China
This online campaign follows previous intelligence setbacks in China. Over a decade ago, the CIA’s network within the country took a big hit when China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) uncovered and destroyed the agency’s clandestine communications network.
Dozens of Chinese citizens who were suspected of assisting the CIA were imprisoned or killed, initiating a period of aggressive counterintelligence operations in China. The MSS subsequently opened up public campaigns such as a WeChat handle to educate the public on how to spot potential spies and promoted reporting of suspicious activities by the public.
Growing Digital Recruitment Push
As per Ratcliffe, the CIA’s new recruitment initiative is one of a larger effort to rebuild human intelligence capabilities within China. CIA Director Bill Burns confirmed in 2023 that the agency “made progress” in rebuilding operations.
“We’re working very hard over recent years to ensure that we have strong human intelligence capability,” he said.
Previous efforts involved text-based videos in Farsi, Korean, and Mandarin on how to reach the CIA safely through the dark web. The Mandarin video alone received over 900,000 views.
According to one U.S. official who spoke with The New York Times, the CIA would not have gone ahead with the movie-quality campaign if the previous videos did not receive heavy engagement.
Engaging Other Adversaries As Well
This tactic isn’t exclusive to China. The CIA has posted similar content in Russian language, among other languages. A Russian-language video targeting elites critical of Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine called for them to take action, “People around you might not like the truth,” the narrator intones. “But we do. You are not helpless. Join us safely.”
“We want to reach those courageous Russians who feel compelled by the Russian government’s unjust war to engage CIA and make sure they do so as safely as possible.”
Now, with this new Chinese-language campaign, the CIA is hoping to repeat that success—and re-ignite its human intelligence network behind the Great Firewall.
