China tries to enlist ordinary people to root out spies
China’s ruling Communist Party is enlisting ordinary people to guard against perceived threats to the country, in a campaign that blurs the line between vigilance and paranoia.
China’s Ministry of State Security, a usually covert department that oversees the secret police and intelligence services, opened its first social media account as part of what official news media described as an effort at increasing public engagement. Its first post was a call for a “whole of society mobilization” against espionage.
“The participation of the masses,” the post said, should be “normalized.”
Chinese universities have ordered faculty members to take courses on protecting state secrets, even those who work in departments like veterinary medicine. A kindergarten in the eastern city of Tianjin organized a meeting to teach staff members how to “understand and use” China’s anti-espionage law.
The sense of urgency may be heightened by the country’s worst economic slowdown in years and increasingly tense relations with the West. Unexplained personnel changes at the highest tiers of power suggest that Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian leader, may have feared threats to his control.
Details: In July, China revised its anti-espionage law to broaden an already sweeping scope of activities that it regards as spying, and is offering rewards of tens of thousands of dollars to people who report spies.
History: One expert said the call to mass action bore echoes of the Cultural Revolution unleashed by Mao Zedong, a decade-long period of chaos and bloodshed when Chinese leaders urged people to report their teachers, neighbors or families as “counterrevolutionaries.”
Background: For decades, China built guardrails to prevent another Mao Zedong. Here’s how Xi Jinping has dismantled them and created his own machinery of power.
Reznikov won praise for negotiating the transfer of vast quantities of donated Western weaponry and oversaw the expansion of the army and its transition from an arsenal of Soviet-legacy armaments to one of Western systems during the war. But his fate had been the subject of increasing speculation in Ukraine as financial improprieties in the ministry have come to light.
Zelensky said in a statement that Rustem Umerov, the chairman of Ukraine’s State Property Fund, would replace Reznikov, who has not been personally implicated in the investigations into the mishandling of military contracts. Zelensky said he expected Ukraine’s Parliament, which must approve the change, to sign off on his request.
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2023-09-03 16:33:25
Article from www.nytimes.com
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