115 Million Views Later: Is Beijing Facing a Defection Crisis?

In past months, some of Xi Jinping's foreign friends have run into serious trouble. One was arrested, and another was killed in a precision strike. From leaders who rule through control and loyalty, for them, events like these raise a deeply unsettling question. What if the real threat isn't outside the system, but inside it? So this year, in Beijing, the most important word is defectors. Now, interestingly, the CIA has recently made a very public effort to recruit sources inside China. And in 2024, the agency released three videos in Mandarin, encouraging Chinese officials to contact them. And this year, they released one more. Now, when you take a look at the view counts of these videos online, they're shocking. If you look at other videos posted in the CIA channel, normally videos would have between a couple of thousand to like 130,000 views. And the videos most watched are in the Chinese language. So for example, these two that were released 10 months ago in April last year, the first one is called Reasons to Choose Cooperation, Become the Master of Your Destiny. And the target audience is CCP senior officials. The views, 20 million. And the second one is Reasons to Choose Cooperation, Create a Bright Future, Target Audience, Assistance to Senior Officials. Total views, 15 million. Now, the above two were released 10 months ago. Take a look at the third video that CIA released one month ago. It's called CIA's Secure Contact Guide. And the target audience is anyone who wants to contact the CIA, any Chinese-speaking individuals. Total views, 64 million. Remember, this was released only one month ago. And then the number four, which is the video title, is called Reasons to Step Forward to Save the Future. Target audience, CCP military officers. Total views, 16 million, released three weeks ago. So that is a total of 115 million views within 10 months. So what does that mean, right? That could easily translate into 10 to million actual viewers, if not more. So 115 million views can translate into 10 to 20 million actual viewers. Let's put that into perspective. China's government system employs roughly 44 to 54 million people. And that includes everyone, government officials, SOE employees, people working for the education systems, the healthcare systems, and also the military. So this means if we had 10 to 20 million viewers in the past 10 months, that could mean roughly one out of every three people inside the government system may have watched at least one of the four CIA videos. Keep in mind, well, these are not just random people who were browsing the internet and accidentally came upon the CIA video. No. Because of the censorship, these people had to make an effort to bypass the firewall before they could watch the video. Now, of course, a view count doesn't necessarily mean someone inside the system is ready to defect, but the scale alone is significant. And it brings us back to the central question, how loyal are the people around the top leaders in Zhongnanhai? Now, according to a report posted on social media by a commentator on March 2nd, a very high level and extremely unusual political arrest took place in Beijing recently. What it says is that the office director, or you could say the chief of staff, of a vice state level Chinese leader was suddenly taken away in secret. Now, vice state level in Chinese is fu guo ji, refers to people like vice premier, vice chairman of the MPC or CPPCC. Basically, vice state level refers to Politburo member level. And here's the critical detail. The arrest was not carried out by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party's anti-corruption watchdog. Instead, it was conducted by the Ministry of State Security. And more strikingly, the vice state level official himself has reportedly been quietly placed under control in an internal guest house under the label of, quote, assisting with the investigation. And the charge against the office director, it sounds almost absurd, but it's deeply unsettling. He is accused of being a double agent for both the United States and Russia. Now let's pause for a moment and think about that. A double agent for the US and Russia? How could one person working simultaneously for two political rivals against China? Is this man some kind of a real life James Bond, smoothly navigating between the CIA and then the KGB? But in reality, whether the accusation makes sense may no longer be the most important point. What it really reveals is Xi Jinping's state of mind or his paranoia. Right now, he's not just guarding against the US. He may also be guarding against Putin. For years, the CCP has described Russia as its strategic partner against the West. And Xi calls Putin his best friend, and the two spoke of cooperation without limits. But now Putin appears willing to abandon even his closest Middle Eastern ally and potentially pivot toward Washington. And suddenly, that strange accusation that the aide was a Russia-US double agent begins to look less like a criminal charge and more like a political signal. It's a dangerous political signal. So Xi Jinping may be using this case to conduct an extreme loyalty test inside the leadership. He may suspect that not only the US, but Russia as well, could have planted eyes and ears inside the Politburo, or even the Central Military Commission. He may suspect that some officials are secretly communicating with Moscow, perhaps even using Russian channels as cover to quietly pass information to the Americans. Inside the red walls of Zhongnanhai, haunting American spies is routine. But accusing a top leader's aide of being a Russian spy at the same time, that suggests something far more serious. So Xi Jinping now looks like someone walking alone on thin ice, and all around him, he hears the faint cracking sounds of fractures spreading. He doesn't trust the West, and now perhaps he can't trust his Russian partner either. And let's talk about the official that he trusts the most, Cai Qi, his most trusted political aide and his chief of staff in political affairs. According to insiders, the general office of the Central Committee, Party Central Committee, controlled by Cai Qi, has issued a strict new order. All staff members in Zhongnanhai, along with central government officials, must now resubmit detailed reports on their overseas connections, covering three generations of their family members. And the scrutiny focuses especially on one question. Who has relatives in the U.S. or Israel? It doesn't matter if your cousin's cousin is washing dishes in New York. You must report him. Every detail matters. So what kind of atmosphere does that create? It's very chilling. Now, let's be honest. Inside China's elite political circles, almost every family has children or grandchildren studying overseas. Studying or working overseas. Many families own properties abroad. Almost all of them have quietly moved assets into Western financial systems. So for years, this was an open secret, an unspoken rule among officials. I mean, it was a kind of escape hatch, a safety route in case the political winds shifted. In the past few days, political insiders in Beijing have been quietly discussing one particular incident. This man, who is widely known as the party's ideological czar, or he's called the ideological architect, who has served three CCP leaders, who is currently the chairman of the CPPCC, has reportedly seen his family placed under unusual protection. Wang Huning's daughter and her family had been living comfortably in Shanghai, Wang's hometown. But suddenly, they were ordered by the party's general office, essentially Xi Jinping's own office, managed by Cai Qi, to pack their belongings overnight and move to Beijing immediately. Why? Well, the official explanation was, quote, protecting the safety of senior leaders' families. Maybe the excuse they say is, look, it's not safe for you to live in Shanghai. You need to be with where your dad is. We need to be all together in case something happens. But think about that for a moment. Is that really about protection? I don't think so. It looks much more like a hostage taking. Let's talk about who this guy is. Who is Wang Huning? He is arguably the most important ideological strategist in the Chinese political system. Some people call him the political makeup artist of CCP leaders. He helped design the ideological frameworks for three generations of leadership. So, from Jiang Zemin's Three Represents, to Hu Jintao's scientific development concept, to the heavily promoted Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics, all of these doctrines were crafted by Wang Huning. So, in many ways, his job has been to make each leader look politically legit. And some people even argue that Wang Huning played a key role in guiding Xi Jinping back toward a more hardline leftist path. And because of that, one Western commentator, I believe his name is Hugh Hewitt, wrote a piece in Washington Post and called him, Wang Huning, the most dangerous man in the world. And now his daughter's family has effectively lost their freedom and must live under the watchful eye of the state. So, here's the question. Has Wang Huning lost Xi Jinping's trust? And why? Well, perhaps Xi cannot forget that label, the most dangerous man in the world. Or perhaps because Wang Huning is simply too intelligent or too smart. I want to use the word smart as opposed to intelligent. He's too smart and too politically sophisticated. Now, a man who can serve three different leaders who don't see eye to eye across three decades, more than three decades, or four decades now, and remain standing still, such political survivorship inside the CCP often means one thing, extreme adaptability. And adaptability can easily make him an opportunist. And that's exactly what Xi Jinping fears. Now, when a regime begins to shake, the first person to jump ship, the first person to quietly send signals to Washington, might very well be someone as smart as Wang Huning. Someone who understands power better than almost anyone in the system. So, by forcing Wang Huning's daughter and her family to relocate to Beijing and keeping them under close watch, Xi Jinping may be sending a very clear message to Wang Huning. You'd better stay loyal. Don't entertain any unusual ideas because your weakest point is now firmly in my hands. And in many ways, that reflects the reality inside Zhongnanhai today. The leadership of a major country is not focused on resolving an economic crisis. Instead, it's absorbed in a dark political game, a game of mutual suspicion and quiet hostage-taking.