China's Propaganda Machine Calls For People's War vs U.S. Spies

"Let's fight a 'people's war' against the spies, so that they cannot move a single step and have no place to hide!"

Photo Insert: Nationalists flocked to the US embassy in China's official Weibo account, leaving mocking comments detailing their proficiencies in Chinese dialects and demanding to be recruited.

That was the rallying cry of a Chinese military newspaper on social media over the weekend, as Beijing urges public vigilance against American espionage following the launch of a CIA mission center dedicated to China.

Beijing's propaganda apparatus is now intensifying a years-long campaign, following CIA director William Burns' October 7 announcement the China Mission Center would counter what he called "the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century."

A video by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV claimed -- without citing sources -- the CIA was recruiting Chinese-speaking agents who understand not only Mandarin, but also various tongues including Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hakka and Hokkien. The clip, published Saturday, was widely carried by state media outlets on social media and immediately went viral.

On Weibo, China's heavily censored version of Twitter, a related hashtag became the top trending topic on Saturday, and has since garnered more than 280 million views, Nectar Gan and Brett McKeehan wrote in an analytical piece for CNN late on Oct. 18, 2021.

Nationalists flocked to the US embassy in China's official Weibo account, leaving mocking comments detailing their proficiencies in Chinese dialects and demanding to be recruited.

"What should we do when the CIA is blatantly recruiting Chinese-speaking agents?" asked Junzhengping, a Weibo account run by the People's Liberation Army Daily, the Chinese military's mouthpiece.

"Foreign hostile forces have been working very hard, and (we) should never drop our guard on national security work," it said in a post on Sunday, accusing the US intelligence service of having more "sinister and unbearable measures" up its sleeve.

"But no cunning fox can beat a good hunter. To safeguard national security, we can only trust the people, rely on the people," it added.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic