The CIA got the language right: Mandarin. The means of contacting the CIA is also right, hopefully: a secure method of communication that the Chinese government can’t listen in on or trace. And the goal is right: to recruit Chinese officials as spies (“ ‘For a better life’: CIA releases videos to lure disgruntled CCP officials to spy on China,” The Guardian, May 2, 2025).
Precarious lives
As reported, though, the message of the CIA’s new recruitment videos doesn’t seem exactly right. (I haven’t seen English translations of the entire scripts.) The message seems to be a little too much about job insecurity and feeling stuck in life. We have a lot of that in the West too.
The two videos touch on probable anxieties among some inside the Communist party machine—getting stuck in a lowly job assisting an increasingly wealthy corrupt official, or becoming victim to the endless purges that have targeted millions of party members at all levels since Xi Jinping came to power.
“As I rise within the party, I watch those above me being discarded like worn-out shoes, but now I realise that my fate was just as precarious as theirs,” a narrator says in one video, adding that he must protect his family whose fate is tied to his.
In another, the narrator declares: “Our leaders’ failure to fulfill repeated promises of prosperity has become a well-known secret… It’s time I start working toward my own dreams.”
The Epoch Times, which provides somewhat different translations of the titles, translates more of the narration.
The first video, titled “Reason for Choosing Cooperation: Become the Master of Your Destiny,” appears to be aimed at senior officials “seeking stability in a treacherous political climate,” as stated in the Mandarin video description.
The narrator tells the story of an accomplished official ill at ease in his position due to gossip, backstabbing, and colleagues simply “disappearing.”
“This man has worked hard his whole life to climb to a high position, but now realizes that no matter how high his position is, it is not enough to protect his family in these terrifying and turbulent times. He longs to take control of his fate, to find a path that will protect his loved ones and the fruits of his lifelong hard work,” the description continues….
The second video, titled “Reason for choosing cooperation: Creating a better future,” narrates the story of a junior official who questions what happened to the fruits of his labor.
“This video shows a Chinese official who studied and worked hard his whole life, but his hard work only nourished the career of his superior,” the description reads.
“Trapped in a system that was difficult to climb out of and consumed by intense competition, he is looking for another way to reward his hard work and achieve his goals. He chooses to make the difficult and important decision to contact the CIA in a safe way.”
The talk of being “discarded like worn-out shoes,” of “terrifying” times and a “treacherous” political climate, of the need to find a way out…all this at least broadly indicates what it is about the Chinese Communist Party system that makes it unworthy of allegiance and worthy of opposition. But maybe too broadly.
Although a brief video can’t make a full case, a little more can probably be said about the vicious nature of the system that viewers would recognize as true—aspects of repression that apply as much to persons outside as inside the party structure.
Americans who have worked as spies for China or the Soviet Union have also done so “to improve my life.” Americans have also often felt bitterly disappointed in higher-ups, trapped in the system, and stuck in a rat race. Americans are also sick of corruption. Yet there’s a big difference between spying for the United States against a totalitarian dictatorship and spying for a totalitarian dictatorship against the United States. What is that difference?
However, the new videos continue reportedly successful efforts that began in October 2024 with appeals to prospective spies in China, Iran, and North Korea. “If it weren’t working, we wouldn’t be making more videos,” says one CIA official.
“The CIA has a particular focus on rebuilding an espionage network inside China,” the Guardian notes. “A couple of years before Xi came to power in 2012, China’s ministry of state security reportedly dismantled a US spy ring, jailing and executing at least a dozen CIA assets.”
China is recruiting too
The People’s Republic of China has also been continuing to look for new espionage assets.
In April 2025, the U.S. Coast Guard warned Coast Guard officials: “New intelligence indicates agents from China, Russia, and other countries have set their sights on recently fired probationary workers, or those with security clearances, hoping to obtain valuable information about U.S. critical infrastructure or national security interests. These foreign intelligence officers actively search LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu—known as RedNote—for potential sources.”
Also see:
CIA: Video: “Why I contacted the CIA: to take control of my fate” (in Mandarin)
“Our global mission demands that individuals be able to reach out to CIA securely from anywhere. This video shows a fictional Chinese official making the difficult but important decision to secretly contact CIA. At the Agency, we have a solemn duty to protect those who work with us—that’s why if you decide to reach out to CIA to share information about China, you should do so securely via our portal on the Dark Web.”
The text under this video and the following video also includes information about the CIA’s Tor hidden service site and other CIA links.
CIA: Video: “Why I contacted the CIA: for a better life” (in Mandarin)
StoptheCCP.org: “Working Hard or Hardly Working? America’s Unserious Counter-CCP Espionage”
