Former CCP officials say the CIA videos may trigger a wave of defections despite the CCP’s tight social control.
After the Central Intelligence Agency released two videos to persuade Chinese officials to provide intelligence about their communist regime, the Chinese foreign ministry denounced the effort, calling it “infiltration.”
Analysts said the Chinese regime’s strong reaction shows that the CIA’s videos are having an effect on officials within the system of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
On May 1, the CIA released two short videos in Mandarin Chinese, speaking directly to CCP officials and enticing them to work with the CIA.
The first video targets senior CCP officials who have watched their colleagues fall from power, go to jail, or be disappeared. After recapping the internal struggles among top CCP officials, the video calls on any senior CCP official who “wants to take control of his fate to find a path that will protect his loved ones and the fruits of his lifelong hard work” to work for the United States.
The video links to a page with instructions on how to contact the CIA through a Tor service—a secure, anonymous, encrypted digital channel.
The second video is aimed at lower-ranking CCP officials, empathizing with their dissatisfaction with the Chinese regime, and reiterating that their hard work only benefits a small number of party elites. The video concludes by saying, “God helps those who help themselves, and your fate is in your control.”
In response to the CIA videos, Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, on May 6 criticized the United States at a press briefing, calling the release of the videos “a serious infringement on China’s national interest and pure political provocation.”
Lin said Beijing will push back on the “sabotage activities from overseas.”
A China expert said the Chinese regime’s warning to the United States is aimed at intimidating CCP officials who are considering the CIA offer.
“But its deterrent effect [that of the CCP’s warning] is limited on those CCP officials who have been suppressed by the regime and for those who are pessimistic about the CCP regime because they are willing to fight to the death with the CCP anyway,” Chung Chih-tung, assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, in Taiwan, told the Chinese language version of The Epoch Times on May 8.
Chung said that this is the first time that Washington has openly facilitated the defection of CCP officials since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China.
“This is the first shot and has created a favorable environment for the wave of CCP officials’ defection,” he said.
The recruiting videos have indeed made an impact, judging from the CCP’s strong reaction, Shen Ming-shih, director of the division of national security research at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times on May 8.
“The CCP is more sensitive to espionage and may conduct more surveillance or take more stringent measures, which will cause more trouble for grassroots citizens or officials,” Shen said.
Shen said that currently, it’s hard for foreign agents to enter China to collect intelligence through business or exchange activities, because they will be easily discovered.
“When foreigners show up in China, they are monitored as long as they behave differently,” he said.
If CCP officials are willing to provide intelligence and their children can settle in the United States in the future, Shen said that “it’s especially attractive to high-ranking officials or grassroots officials who are trapped in mainland China, unable to go abroad or are in dire situations.”Du Wen, who was the director of the Inner Mongolia government’s legal advisory office and served as legal adviser to Hu Chunhua, the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, told The Epoch Times, “If the CIA can properly arrange for the families of these senior officials, I believe a large number of them will defect.”
Du was jailed for 12 years because of CCP infighting. After being released from prison in January 2023, he remained under police surveillance, so he defected to Belgium with his family.
“Now, everyone in China wishes for the death of the Communist Party and [its leader] Xi. I have met too many people who think of this, whether they have been taken down from their positions or not. But there is nothing they can do,” Du said.
“I know too well that they want to get out of China, but they can’t. How can they leave safely? There are technical difficulties, difficulties in leaving China safely, and difficulties in transmitting intelligence,” he said.
Du said that the current senior officials in the Chinese regime are older and may have less proficiency in accessing the internet and circumventing China’s firewall.
“In the absence of security knowledge, it’s indeed risky for these officials to share information through the dark web or encrypted channels,” Du said.
“There are many officials who want to flee but very few who can actually bring out valuable intelligence.”
Li Chuanliang, former deputy mayor of Jixi City in Heilongjiang Province, told The Epoch Times: “Now, CCP officials have difficulty escaping because of restrictions in all aspects, but they have begun to oppose the Party ideologically. At least 80 to 90 percent of them are opposing the CCP in their minds.”
Li also served as the deputy mayor of Hegang City in Heilongjiang. He resigned from public office in 2017. In August 2020, shortly after Li arrived in the United States, he publicly withdrew from the CCP, spoke in support of Chinese private entrepreneurs, and established the China Cruel Officials Reporting Center.
“I know too much about the dark side of the Chinese regime, and everyone has discussed such issues,” he said.
Li said that every official has seen through the CCP, “this kind of totalitarianism, control, terror.”
“They kill whoever they want, arrest whoever they want,” he said.
“Why have many officials sent their children out to Western countries? Some even transferred some of their wealth out. It’s because they don’t have any hope,” he said.
Li predicts there will definitely be CCP officials who want to defect. “The only question is how many can escape China and how to find the path to escape.”
He said he has watched the two CIA recruitment videos several times.
“I also want to urge people within the CCP’s system to do it [work for the CIA], which is also a way to hold on to their conscience and to serve the motherland,” he said.
“Stop working for this terrorist organization [the CCP], and don’t be an accomplice.”
Luo Ya, Yi Ru, and Song Tang contributed to this report.