New | Foreign spy networks target China’s college students: state media

The game of finger-pointing over cyberspace attacks between China and US seems to have shifted to the realm of espionage of late as Chinese state media published reports accusing an “overseas intelligence agency” of recruiting college students in the mainland as spies following blunt warnings in US of similar practices there.

“A same overseas intelligence agency” has repeatedly seduced Chinese college students into conducting espionage and into applying for posts with access to confidential information, the Global Times, a subordinate paper of ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece the People’s Daily known for its explicit nationalist tone, splashed on its Wednesday edition.

It did not name the agency or the country where it is based at any point in the lengthy report.

Interestingly, the accusations in the article bear a striking resemblance to the scenario played out in a video clip made and released by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last month that bluntly warned US students to be wary of the recruiting efforts made by Chinese intelligence agencies.

The 28-minute video replicates a real case in which US citizen Glenn Duffie Shriver, then a college student travelling to China, was lured by Chinese intelligence agents into a spying on the US in exchange for financial support.

Shriver was later arrested in 2010 after he attempted to apply for a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) post under a Chinese intelligent agent’s directives. He was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to espionage charges.