China’s Foreign Ministry on Friday pledged to thwart “anti-China forces” after the CIA released a dramatic Chinese-language video to solicit informants from the officer corps of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
Why It Matters
While intelligence agencies routinely cultivate sources within both friendly and adversarial militaries, observers noted the 95-second clip was unusually overt. Its release comes as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping attempt to walk back tensions driven by a range of grievances, from trade to an escalating rivalry in the West Pacific.
The timing is also sensitive for China’s military establishment, coming just weeks after another senior officer was swept up in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign.
Newsweek reached out to the CIA by email for comment.
What To Know
“The Chinese side will take all necessary measures to firmly crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by external anti-China forces and to firmly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a Friday’s regular press briefing. “The attempts of anti-China forces will not succeed.”
The video opens with a PLA officer entering a military facility for a high-level briefing. “This is the world I am familiar with. Defend the homeland, protect the people,” the narrator says. “Yet, day after day, the truth becomes increasingly clear: what the leaders are really protecting is only their own self-interest.
“Anyone with leadership ability is inevitably envied and ruthlessly eliminated,” he says—language apparently crafted to resonate with officers unsettled by recent disciplinary actions against senior figures, including Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia.
In the next scene, the officer watches a military parade at home with his wife while their daughter colors on the floor. “I can’t let these madmen shape the future world for my daughter,” he says.
“History tells us that those who win without fighting are the greatest victors. But these people who have never seen war are eager to throw us onto the battlefield.”
The video concludes with the officer parking his car and accessing the CIA website on a laptop. “For the future of our country and my family, I have some important information,” he types.
The clip comes on the heels of another video released in January aimed at Chinese civilians. In 2024, the CIA took to social media to instruct prospective assets on how to contact the agency, in a post Beijing blasted as a “serious infringement of China’s national interests.”
Chinese authorities previously dismantled a CIA espionage network between 2010 and 2012, killing or imprisoning between 18 and 20 sources, according to U.S. officials cited by The New York Times.
What People Are Saying
Isaac Stone Fish, CEO and founder of Strategy Risks, wrote on X: “Bold video from the CIA, in Chinese, showing a Chinese People’s Liberation Army official contacting the CIA. ‘You hold the world’s fate in your hands.’”
What Happens Next
The most plausible military flashpoint between Washington and Beijing remains Taiwan, the self-ruled island and critical semiconductor producer that China claims as its territory.
Xi Jinping has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be capable of conducting operations against Taiwan by 2027, according to senior U.S. defense and intelligence officials.
The two leaders are expected to meet in Beijing in early April. –
