China | No laughing matter

A comical effort by China’s intelligence agency

Will a new cartoon convince people to look out for spies?

The Secret Special Investigation Division (SPD)
A break in the casePhotograph: Ministry of National Security/WeChat
|BEIJING

FOREIGN SPIES are lurking everywhere! So says the Chinese government. Officials were ruffled by the CIA’s claim, made last year, that it was rebuilding its spy networks in China a decade after most of its sources disappeared. But China’s reaction seems defined more by paranoia than vigilance. The national intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), wants the entire population to be on the lookout for spies.

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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “No laughing matter”

From the January 13th 2024 edition

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