Counterintelligence unit, FBI issue warning
Bill Gertz | April 15, 2025
(The Washington Times) — China is using consulting firms, headhunters and think tanks to aggressively recruit current and former U.S. officials as spies, according to a federal counterspy unit.
“Foreign intelligence entities, particularly those in China, are targeting current and former U.S. government employees for recruitment by posing as consulting firms, corporate headhunters, think tanks, and other entities on social and professional networking sites,” the National Counterintelligence and Security Center stated in a one-page warning.
The warning was echoed by the FBI on X. “China and other foreign intelligence entities are targeting former and current U.S. government employees on social and professional networking sites,” the bureau said in a post.
The FBI is the lead federal agency in charge of domestic counterintelligence. It declared on its website that Chinese Communist Party spying is “a grave threat” and top counterintelligence priority.
Chinese spies are using sophisticated deception ploys, including job offers and other virtual appeals to target people with government experience who are seeking employment, the counterintelligence notice said.
The warning comes amid a downsizing under the Trump administration within the U.S. government, including at national security agencies.
The administration since January has taken steps to close a number of federal agencies, including dismissing about 80 probationary CIA employees. Other officials engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion programs have also been fired.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, with about 10,000 employees worldwide, has been mostly shut down after government efficiency investigators traced some of its funding and activities to liberal Democrat political operations.
The case of Navy Chief Petty Officer Thomas Zhao was mentioned in the counterintelligence report as an example of the targeting.
Zhao was sentenced to prison in January 2024 for providing sensitive U.S. military information to a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for more than $14,000 in cash. Zhao was recruited through a social media chat group on stock trading.
From Zhao, China was able to obtain photos, videos and documents about U.S. military exercises and radar facilities in the Pacific — information that could be valuable for China’s military in a future conflict with the United States.
The counterintelligence notice said the online targeting can take place on social media, professional networking sites and online employment forums.
Direct email messages and other messaging platforms also are used.
“Recruiters may appear to be affiliated with a legitimate firm from a non-alerting country,” the report said.
Former U.S. officials with security clearances for access to secrets were reminded by the counterspy center of “their legal obligation to protect classified data even after departing [U.S. government] service.”
The social media site Bluesky was used by China to attempt to recruit researchers dismissed from the National Institutes of Health through offers of “career development” in Shenzhen, China.
Former FBI officials and retired U.S. military officers also are being targeted.
Signs of intelligence targeting can include job offerings with remote work at unusually high pay scales, or the use of flattery and praise to those known to have held sensitive government posts.
Chinese spy recruiters also offer pay for innocuous reports that are then followed with demands to produce studies using sensitive or non-public information.
The spy pitches also may include an emphasis on targeted former officials providing limited, one-off or exclusive reports in exchange for quick payment.
Concerns over Chinese spying prompted the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to recently order all Americans in China to end personal relationships with local nationals over spy recruitment concerns.
A former U.S. intelligence official said China’s communist spy recruiters will use subtle and sophisticated means, such as coopting think tanks and security assessment companies.
Many former U.S. officials, including those who held senior government positions, have gone to work for companies and organizations founded or partially owned by Chinese entities, the former official said.
The FBI under new Director Kash Patel has focused on reforming and improving FBI criminal investigations from alleged politicization.
But the new leadership team has said little about counterintelligence reform.
Peter Strzok, a former FBI deputy counterintelligence chief, was fired in 2018 after text messages revealed he had told his mistress the FBI would prevent Donald Trump from being elected in 2016.
Former Defense Intelligence Agency counterintelligence specialist Nicholas Eftimiades said China’s Ministry of State Security, the main spy service, has significantly altered its overseas operations in the past five years with stepped-up online recruitment, including the use of LinkedIn.
“Recruitment approaches through LinkedIn have become standard MSS operational practice,” Mr. Eftimiades stated in a new book, “Chinese Espionage Operations and Tactics.”
For example, the MSS conducted some 20,000 online recruitment attempts in Britain, 4,000 in France and more than 10,000 in Germany using pitches to former officials, he said.
“Recruitment approaches are often subtle, offering paid consultancies, free business trips to China, and other monetary incentives,” he said.
“Once the target provides data, the relentless pressure comes to provide non-public information.”
While the use of LinkedIn and other social media platforms is common among many intelligence services, the volume of targeting by MSS is unique, Mr. Eftimiades said.
The MSS targets those with active security clearances, financial problems, personal likes, political views and professional contacts within commercial, defense, scientific and intelligence sectors.
Mr. Eftimiades also stated that the case of Chinese agent Christine Fang, also known as Fang Fang, is an example of how the MSS uses students for long-term intelligence gathering and recruitment.
Ms. Fang arrived in the United States in 2009 as a student at California State University. She “raised funds and volunteered for several area politicians, including numerous city and state-level politicians, including Eric Swalwell and Tulsi Gabbard,” he said. Both were subsequently elected to Congress, and Ms. Gabbard is now director of national intelligence.
“The FBI reported that Fang was deeply engaged in romantic relationships with at least two southwestern mayors,” Mr. Eftimiades said. “Media interviews report that she was active in relationships with ten or more politicians.”
China is engaged in a massive “whole-of-society” approach to espionage and is a key element in the U.S.-China trade war over American demands that Beijing halt the theft of intellectual property and trade secrets, Mr. Eftimiades said.
“China’s espionage activities are changing the global balance of power, impacting the U.S. and foreign economies, and providing challenges to domestic, national security, and foreign policy formulation,” he said.
