In the Online Age, PRC Foreign Intelligence Evolves

Executive Summary:

• Chinese intelligence efforts are increasingly moving away from human intelligence (HUMINT) collection to digital operations launched from within the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Ministry of State Security (MSS), military intelligence, and others have started to employ online recruiting to replace face-to-face contact for foreign assets.

• Beijing likely adopted the new model in response to the 2018 arrest of Xu Yanjun—the first MSS officer to be tried and convicted in the United States—which highlighted counterintelligence risks facing officers operating outside PRC borders.

• The MSS is using LinkedIn en masse to recruit and develop assets overseas. These operations frequently involve headhunter-style approaches and commercial pretexts to collect resumes and gather intelligence.

• Traditional HUMINT remains an important component of MSS tradecraft. MSS agents have started to integrate face-to-face contact in the PRC for managing their overseas contacts while their assets abroad deploy digital tools to facilitate operations.

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