You can do anything for intelligence while I shall do nothing against espionage?

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By China's Ministry of State Security (Global Times) 10:42, February 18, 2024

You can do anything for intelligence

while I shall do nothing against espionage?

At present, the China-US relationship is at a critical stage of stabilization and improvement. Communication in diplomatic, economic, military and other fields between the two countries is gradually expanding. Bilateral cooperation in drug control and artificial intelligence exchanges are also in full swing. While China and the United States are actively implementing the San Francisco Vision, William Burns, the director of CIA, in a recent article on Foreign Affairs titled Spycraft and Statecraft, said that CIA has committed substantially more resources toward China-related intelligence collection, operations and analysis around the world, more than doubling the percentage of its overall budget focused on China over just the last two years. CIA is hiring and training more Mandarin speakers, expanding the confrontation against China to every corner of the agency.

As a matter of fact, it is not the first time the director of CIA which is the largest spy agency across the globe has made such outrageous statements or "freely admitted its guilt". In recent years, the USA, on the one hand, started intelligence wars, sparing no efforts to step up its espionage against China and, on the other hand, "brought suit against its victims", scandalously smearing China's justifiable defense and trying to misrepresent the Counterespionage Law of PRC as an "evil law". It is nothing but that "one may steal a horse while another may not look over the hedge" or another typical case of hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of the USA.

Firstly, targeting China,

redoubling intelligence

gathering against China.

As early as his CIA Director confirmation hearing held in February, 2021, Burns claimed that "out competing China will be key to America's national security in the decades ahead". Once in office, he couldn't wait to make China "a priority task", committing more resources toward China-related intelligence collection. In October, 2021, adhering to a Cold-War mindset, CIA built the China Mission Center, the only CIA organization structure named after a country, so as to use its approach toward USSR in its China mission. In July, 2023, Burns even "boasted" in public on the Aspen Security Forum that CIA had made great progress in rebuilding its intelligence network in China.

For a period of time , Chinese national security departments have always been ready to take actions against overseas spy agencies threatening the national security of China. For one thing, relevant departments have recently cracked a number of espionage cases including the case of John Shing-Wan Leung, a "medal-winning spy" working for the USA. For another, more efforts have been made to promote the rule of law in respect of the counterespionage work. For instance, the comprehensive revision of the Counterespionage Law, especially the addition of the Chapter, "Security Protection", facilitates China's counterespionage work in the spirit of the rule of law and helps create an even better environment for development.

Secondly, blaming others for their

own mistakes, smearing the revision

of the Counterespionage Law.

In April, 2019, Mike Pompeo, former CIA Director, said during a speech that "...We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses...", a blatant confession of the despicable practices of CIA. In recent years, CIA not only stepped up its intelligence collection against China but also "brought suit against its victims" by smearing, fabricating charges or using overseas media so as to "fan the flames" or to "whip up public opinions" against China. For instance, it cooked up such false or preposterous narratives that China’s revision of the Counterespionage Law leads to "generalizing national security", "undermining the business environment", "detaining foreign nationals arbitrarily" or "coercive gathering of enterprise data". In effect, this article by Director Burns might have given the "reason" why it was necessary for China to revise the Law and intensify its counterespionage efforts.

A lie told a thousand times remains a lie. In order to clarify the facts and dispel misgiving or misunderstanding, Chinese legislature and law enforcement agencies have been keeping up the good work in publishing a number of articles which elaborates the background, content as well as the practical needs of the law revision. For a better understanding of the new Counterespionage Law, the National People's Congress website has published the English version of the law. In response to the concerns and smear around the revision, the Ministry of State Security of PRC has published more than twenty articles or cases related to the law revision on its official WeChat account. Upon the enactment of the new law, the Ministry of Commerce of PRC promptly met with and introduced the newly revised law to enterprise representatives of the United States, Japan and South Korea and other China's major trade partners so that they may have a better understanding of the law and, in return, have a greater sense of security and confidence in their investment in China.

Finally, the truth is evident,

China's consistent stand and

the law itself are the best response.