The US Central Intelligence Agency has launched a new campaign to recruit informants in China, Iran and North Korea, UNN reports citing the BBC.
Details
On Wednesday, the organization posted messages on its social media accounts in Chinese, Farsi, and Korean, telling users how to contact it safely.
This latest attempt follows a campaign to recruit Russians after the invasion of Ukraine, which the CIA says was successful.
"We want people in other authoritarian regimes to know that we are open to doing business," the CIA official said.
The recruitment messages posted on platforms such as X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram, and LinkedIn, as well as on the darknet, asked for people's names, locations, and contact information.
Detailed instructions recommended that users contact the CIA through its official website, using trusted encrypted virtual private networks (VPNs) or an anonymous web browser known as Tor, which is often used to access the darknet.
U.S. intelligence considers North Korea, Iran, and China "difficult targets" for intelligence gathering, given the rigorous level of surveillance that all countries use to suppress dissent, the newspaper writes.
"These efforts are just one way the CIA is adapting to the new global environment of increased state repression and global surveillance," the intelligence agency said in a statement.
U.S. intelligence leaders, encouraged by the Russia effort, are confident that they will be able to reach enough disgruntled citizens who will be willing to contact them and provide potentially useful information.
"There are a lot of people in China who have access to information and are unhappy with the Xi regime," CIA Deputy Director David Cohen told Bloomberg.
"There are people inside who... for various reasons fundamentally disapprove of the direction Xi is taking the country and realize that there is a way to help their own country by working with us," he added.
Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said that the United States is waging an "organized and systematic" disinformation campaign against China.
"Any attempts to drive a wedge between the Chinese people and the CCP (Communist Party of China) or weaken their close ties will inevitably fail," Liu said in his statement.