A Look Inside China's Army of Citizen Spies

A top former US intelligence expert pulls back the covers of Beijing’s espionage juggernaut

On my first visit to China as a member of an Australian student group decades ago, we were assigned several guides from the National Travel Service. One of them was suave in an understated way, helpful but not too much so. A few of us latched onto him, and we all became quite friendly as we toured communes, universities, and museums. 

Let’s call him Mr. Wong. Many years later, when I returned to Beijing as a journalist I decided to look him up. What was he like now I wondered? Why was he a student guide? At the time, he seemed too smart for that. To my surprise, he wasn’t hard to find. A Chinese acquaintance had good contacts at the top of the National Travel Service, which by the time I turfed up again in 2012, had lost a great deal of luster.

Mr. Wong and his wife came to my apartment and we spent a convivial afternoon reminiscing about how he acted as nanny, watchful eye and dispenser of information to inquisitive, rather naive newcomers. As he was leaving, he hesitated and then said: You know Jane, after that trip I was assigned as a military intelligence officer in two countries, one in Asia, the other in Europe. Even before he became our student minder, it turned out, his first job was as an intelligence officer when the Chinese were helping out the North Vietnamese against the Americans.