A new recruiting campaign by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is aimed at informants in North Korea, China, and Iran. On Wednesday, for the CIA recruitment in Asia they posted messages on social media in Mandarin, Farsi, and Korean, explaining how people may safely contact the agency. This endeavor follows a similar effort to attract Russians, which the CIA claimed was successful after the invasion of Ukraine.
A CIA officer said dictatorial governments must know the agency is “open for business.” Recruiting messages on X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram, LinkedIn, and the black web requested names, locations, and contact information. Users can contact the CIA through its website by using encrypted VPNs or the anonymous Tor network, which accesses the dark web.
Experts have pointed out how unique this CIA recruitment in Asia attempt is. Hankuk University of Foreign Studies assistant professor Mason Richey stated he had never seen anything like that in Korea. Richey doubted the campaign’s potential in North Korea, where officials limit internet access, despite its success in Russia. However, he said that the CIA may target North Korean dealers who use VPNs and cross the border with China.
US intelligence regards China, Iran, and North Korea as “hard targets” because of their extensive monitoring systems. Despite the challenges, the CIA insists that gathering intelligence requires responding to more government surveillance and repression. CIA Deputy Director David Cohen believes enough dissatisfied people in these governments, especially China, may give important intelligence.
However, A Chinese embassy spokeswoman, Liu Pengyu, rejected the recruiting drive, calling it an “organized and systematic” misinformation campaign against China. He declared that efforts to sever the Chinese people’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party would be futile. Still, observers believe the ad portrays the US’s growing fight with a coalition of foes, a Cold War dynamics.
