Successful informants can receive “spiritual rewards” in certificates or “material rewards” in cash, according to regulations released by the Ministry of State Security on Monday.
The cash rewards are classified into four tiers based on the value of the ad, ranging from less than 10,000 yuan ($1,500) to more than 100,000 yuan.
Notices must be specific about the people or actions involved, and the information must be new to authorities. Complaints can be made in person, online, by post or through the State security hotline.
For years, Chinese authorities have encouraged the public to report foreign spies and their Chinese collaborators through propaganda campaigns and incentives, efforts that have been accelerated under the country’s leadership, Xi Jinping.
“We must ensure that national security is all for the people and all for the people, mobilizing the efforts of the entire Communist Party and the entire society to gather powerful forces to safeguard national security,” Xi told officials in 2016. .
In 2017, the Beijing municipal government began offering rewards of up to half a million yuan ($75,000) for anyone who helps expose a spy. In one year, authorities received nearly 5,000 reports and handed out bounties to informants ranging from scientific researchers to taxi drivers, according to the state-run Beijing News.
The new measures are aimed at standardizing such rewards and motivating the public, a representative of the Ministry of State Security told the Legal Daily, a state newspaper.
“The formulation of the measures helps to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the general public to support and assist in the national security work and widely gather the hearts, morals, wisdom and strength of the people,” said the representative of the ministry.
The regulations also come as Chinese officials and state media push the narrative that China is under serious and ongoing threat from “hostile foreign forces,” who are allegedly seeking to infiltrate and undermine the country in every way possible.
“China’s national security is facing a serious and complex situation. In particular, foreign intelligence agencies and hostile forces have significantly stepped up their infiltration and espionage activities with more diverse means and are targeting wider areas, which poses a serious threat to China’s national security.” said the representative of the ministry.
China’s growing suspicion of foreign influences stems in part from its growing geopolitical rivalry with the West, especially the United States, as the country becomes more authoritarian at home and assertive abroad under Xi.
Xi’s efforts to strengthen national security began a year after he took office. In November 2013, he created a powerful National Security Commission, which he heads, to lead the effort and better coordinate the wings of the country’s security bureaucracy.
In 2015, China passed a comprehensive national security law covering a wide range of areas, including defense, politics, economy, environment, technology, cyberspace, outer space, culture, ideology and religion. It also established a national hotline for citizens to report suspected spies or espionage.
On April 15, 2016, the country celebrated its first annual National Security Education Day with an avalanche of propaganda, including a comic-style poster displayed in Beijing warning young female civil servants about dating handsome foreigners, so that they do not fall in love with a possible James Bond. .
And for the country’s second National Security Education Day, an online publisher published books for schoolchildren to learn how to safeguard national security, which contained games like “look for the spy.” The Global Times, a state-run nationalist tabloid, said the books were part of an effort to mobilize students from primary schools to universities as “a huge force against espionage.”
Around the same time, an unofficial notice circulated widely on social media, listing ways to spot a potential spy. Foreign correspondents, missionaries and NGO staff were among those identified as possible suspects. So were people “with vague jobs, multiple degrees, and lots of money,” those who “have studied abroad in many countries,” and “people who regularly go somewhere to meet other people.”
But these campaigns have not only raised suspicions about foreigners living in China. They have also been used to attack government critics, social activists, lawyers, journalists, feminists, and other outspoken members of the Chinese public, especially given the extremely broad and vague definition of “national security.”
On social media, liberal commentators are often accused by nationalists of being traitors to their country and labeled “walking 500k” meaning they work for foreign spies and are worth a cash reward if they are reported. Their accounts are frequently attacked by nationalist trolls and reported to censors, and subsequently deleted from the platforms. Foreign forces and their Chinese collaborators are increasingly blamed for a host of social problems, from poor illustrations in primary school textbooks to mounting criticism of the country’s politics. zero-Covid policy.
Following the release of the new regulations, some Chinese social media users joked that Chinese “traitors” have depreciated from 500,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan in 2017 because there were simply too many of them today.
Source: www.cnn.com