A comical effort by China’s intelligence agency
Foreign spies are lurking everywhere! So says the Chinese government. Officials were ruffled by the CIA’s claim, made last year, that it was rebuilding its spy networks in China a decade after most of its sources disappeared. But China’s reaction seems defined more by paranoia than vigilance.
The national intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), wants the entire population to be on the lookout for spies. To improve public awareness, the ministry has launched an online comic strip called “Shenyin Special Investigation Squad". It will feature heart-pounding action, say China’s spooks.
The first instalment, released on January 7th, shows the capture and interrogation of a blond-haired man, seemingly foreign, who is suspected of breaking the country’s counter-espionage law. It also introduces the members of the Shenyin team. Among them are a tech geek named A Zhe (he wears glasses and enjoys bubble tea) and a martial-arts whizz named Dan Dan (she is a long-haired police officer).
An agent named Lao Tan has 20 years of experience in the field of security and an unspecified set of skills (one imagines they are very particular, a nightmare for certain people). The first instalment ends with the team investigating suspicious activity in the Xishan mining area. According to the MSS, the story is inspired by actual counter-espionage cases.
The intelligence agency is working hard to help “the seeds of national security to take root and sprout" in the minds of young people. Last year it joined WeChat, a popular messaging app, where it shares stories of devious foreign spies at work. Now it is creating comics.
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