In the past week, Chinese state media CCTV, “Beijing Daily”, and “Xinhuanet” have concentrated on quoting the so-called “anti-spying” cases disclosed by the Chinese Communist Party’s national security system. A case without disclosed occurrence time has been magnified multiple times and continuously pushed into the public eye within a few days. Informed sources indicate that what the authorities have made public is a fabricated case, and the real cases will not be disclosed.
According to the official media “China News Weekly” report on April 20, in a border area, a villager surnamed Xie found a suspicious man hiding a backpack in the bushes while working in the fields, and repeatedly looking towards the direction of the border. Villager Xie notified nearby personnel to report to the police and chased after the man with farming tools, intercepting him near the border isolation facility. The report claims that the man is a confidential personnel of a certain unit who has been bought by foreign intelligence agencies and attempted to escape with confidential information.
The above report did not specify the time of the incident, nor did it disclose the specific location and the involved unit, only describing the discovery and interception process, but emphasizing this as a “real case”.
A former criminal investigator named Tan Xiaoyang from Hunan, in an interview with Epoch Times, said that there are multiple obvious suspicions in the official report of “Villager Using a Hoe to Catch a Spy”: “Based on my experience in handling cases, the most suspicious part of this case is that the whole process does not make sense. If you say he is a core confidential personnel with a bunch of secrets in his hand, why would he use the most foolish way to climb over the border? Someone of this level would not operate like this. Why wouldn’t the confidential information be transmitted in advance through the internet?”
He explained, “The report mentioned ‘a backpack full of confidential documents’, which is also very strange. Nowadays, these things are mostly handled electronically, either transmitted in advance or through encrypted devices. No one would be silly enough to carry around a bag of papers. Once caught, it’s a complete disaster, with no room for defense.”
Tan Xiaoyang also mentioned that the capture process in the Chinese national security notification appears more bizarre: “Saying a villager holding a hoe stopped the person, this sounds even more unrealistic. People who are targeted by foreign institutions usually have some counter-surveillance awareness, and wouldn’t behave so conspicuously at the border, to easily be controlled by ordinary people.”
Zhao Fan, an informant who pays attention to Chinese public opinion control, said in an interview that, to his knowledge, the so-called spy cases announced by the authorities are mostly fabricated, and the real cases will not be disclosed: “True spy cases involve so-called state secrets and related laws, they will not be disclosed. This year, the Chinese Communist Party’s national security has released this kind of message not in one go, but in stages. The timing is around April 15, followed by continuous repetition through different media, making the same story continue to appear. This rhythm is completely aimed at inducing the public to create an anti-spy atmosphere, to achieve the goal of anti-American and anti-Western sentiments.”
From April 16 to 17, CCTV, People’s Daily, and various local party media began to centrally reprint multiple “anti-spy” cases, and simultaneously launched many similar contents involving job recruitment, online contacts, travel filming scenes, and more. Related reports mentioned that 103 individuals were commended for reporting or aiding.
Zhao Fan said, “Between the 16th and 17th, state media unified the republishing, aiming to organize the originally fragmented information into a fixed narrative. The public sees the same narrative through different channels, and this repetition will deepen the public’s impression.”
From April 18 to 20, mainland China’s platforms disassembled and recombined the case, repeatedly pushing it out, and simultaneously spreading to overseas websites. Through rewriting titles and details, various channels evolved into multiple versions like “Farmer Catching a Spy in the Field” and “Rideshare Driver Anti-Spy”, etc. However, these contents are mostly composed of spliced images or virtual materials, without presenting the specific process of capture, nor the usual CCTV “confession” footage.
Regarding this, some netizens straightforwardly stated, “The case is repeatedly stirred up, but critical details remain vague.” Others commented, “Nowadays, many things are leaning towards national security, like a gust of wind blowing repeatedly, then quieting down after a while, and everyone seems to be unphased.”