Spies and Lies

This book is interesting, but the author's understanding of Chinese politics is quite shallow, and everything is interpreted in the worst possible light.

The young author, who came of age during the Xi era, apparently assumes that the party has been a monolith throughout history and that all talk of a "peaceful rise" and "democratic reform within the party" are manufactured lies from the start, intended to confuse the party's gullible Western assets. According to this assumption, anyone who shows a dovish/liberal side is a lying undercover agent. As much as I may dislike the current leadership, I do not agree with this judgement. Before Xi, there used to be a genuine dovish/liberal faction within the party. Just look at Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School during the Jiang/Hu era who is now in exile; Ren Zhiqiang, one of the most influential microbloggers in China who is now serving an 18-year prison sentence; or Wu Jianmin, the dovish diplomat who is now regarded as a traitor by the wolf warrior generation. "China was on the verge of a color revolution before Xi Da Da saved the party" is the consensus among Chinese conservative circles these days.

Additionally, the author assumes that all scholars accompanied by MSS agents on multiple occasions are MSS assets themselves. This assumption is problematic. In China, everyone is under state surveillance to varying degrees, and the party is never comfortable with the idea of free scholarly exchange. It would not surprise me if they tried to surveil all such exchanges, and some scholars who frequently co-appear with MSS agents might be victims instead of accomplices.

The author also believes that the dynamics of the interactions between foreigners and MSS-infiltrated organizations are one-sided, meaning that the MSS dupes foreigners while the foreigners leave zero impact on wider Chinese society. This is also not true. Western think tanks like the RAND/Carnegie Endowment (criticized as "useful idiots" by the author) are strongly feared as vehicles for color revolution in China. If they were fully manipulated by the MSS and had no real impact, this would not be the case.

Given all the materials in the book, the author fails to compare the MSS influence campaigns with their western counterparts. It is not new that think tanks focusing on international relations/grand strategies are strongly linked to the military/intelligence apparatus. There are a ton of such entities in Washington DC alone. Influence campaign focusing on "high value individuals" is also not new. Take a look at the Israel lobby in the US. Is the operations of the MSS truly that shocking?

It is understandable that the author wants to raise awareness about the MSS issue, but he is probably going too far in his accusations and inadequate in his explanations. For your interest, the author has a poor track record on making rigorous, evidence-based accusations - on one occasion he has to make an official apology for his false accusations on the ASPI website. Please take his specific accusations with a grain of salt.