Chinese military newspaper calls for ‘people’s war’ to counter US spies after CIA sets up new China unit

The call by PLA Daily follows reports that the US intelligence service is looking to recruit Chinese speaking operatives

Post on social media says ‘no cunning fox can defeat a good hunter’ and says the military is relying on the people to look out for spies

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The CIA is setting up a new unit dedicated to China. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:03pm, 17 Oct 2021Updated: 9:44am, 18 Oct 2021

A Chinese military newspaper has called for a “people’s war” to defeat American espionage after the CIA set up a new unit dedicated to China.

The launch of China Mission Centre on October 7, which CIA Director William Burns said was aimed at countering “the most important geopolitical threat” of the century, has gone viral on Chinese social media.

A widely circulated video clip in the past few days, carried by many state-controlled media outlets, claimed that the CIA was recruiting Chinese-speaking operatives who understood Mandarin as well as Cantonese, Hakka and Shanghainese.

CIA Director William Burns has said China is the “most important geopolitical threat” of the century. Photo: AFP

A Weibo account run by the People’s Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper for the armed forces, described the CIA as a foreign hostile force, adding that “the US intelligence service, which is so blatantly recruiting special agents, must have more sinister and unbearable methods behind it”.

But Sunday’s post continued: “No cunning fox can beat a good hunter. To maintain national security, we only need to trust the people and rely on the people.”