China’s Espionage Across the World Remains Historically High, With U.S. Being Top Target: Experts Warn

Chinese pro-democracy activists in the U.S. are warning President Xi Jinping’s government is spying in the States as latest assessments from America’s intelligence agencies confirm China continues to be the most active and persistent cyber threat to the U.S.

China’s Ministry of State Security, or MSS, is the largest and most active spy agency in the world, according to a new report from CBS News. Over the years, the country’s spies have turned more confident, seemingly fearing the U.S. less and less.

Last year, MSS posted a video on China’s largest social network, WeChat, which argued that the spy agency “senses things before they happen” and “fights against evil.” The video served as a public message to both foreign adversaries and China’s own citizens about the ministry’s growing power.

“They are committed to going after the United States,” former diplomat Jim Lewis, whose direct experience with China’s intelligence agencies spans more than 30 years, told 60 Minutes. “We are target number two for them,” with the top target being China’s own people.

“Xi Jinping probably remembers that a lot of revolutions start outside the home country, and he doesn’t want that to happen to China,” he added. “So there’s a huge effort to pay attention to the expatriate population.”

Because of this, two U.S. based pro-democracy Chinese activists are warning that China is watching them.

One of them, Anna Yeung-Cheung, born in Hong Kong and now a U.S. citizen, says the Chinese government said spies are collecting information for Beijing on what’s being said at protests in the U.S. and how many people are showing up.

“This is their tactics, right? They try to silence you, harass you, or intimidate you so that you stop what you’re doing,” she said.

Another one, Anna Kwok, who runs a pro-democracy organization that Yeung-Cheung co-founded, said authorities in Hong Kong have offered 1 million Hong Kong dollars, or about $130,000 USD, for information leading to her arrest due to her activism.

“They see me as a traitor, as someone who betrays the Chinese government and the Hong Kong government,” she said.

The recent concerns over Chinese espionage comes as the CIA released a series of videos earlier this month encouraging Chinese nationals to spy for the agency, appealing to their frustrations with, and fears of, Beijing’s government and its corruption, The New York Times reports.

The Mandarin-language videos, which have been described as “cinematic,” were released across multiple platforms. They resemble recruiting videos the agency has produced in the past few years aimed at encouraging Russians to share secrets with the U.S.

The recent appeal to Chinese nationals reflects the priority John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, has placed on increasing the agency’s intelligence collection on China.

“No adversary in the history of our nation has presented a more formidable challenge or a more capable strategizing competitor than the Chinese Communist Party,” Ratcliffe wrote in a note to CIA officers last month. “It is intent on dominating the world economically, militarily and technologically, and it is aggressively trying to outcompete America in every corner of the globe.”