China Tries to Recruit Fired Federal Employees

What Happened?

According to Max Lesser, a senior analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a network of Chinese companies is actively trying to recruit recently fired federal workers from the United States. 

Mr. Lesser described the activities as “part of a broader network of fake consulting and headhunting firms targeting former U.S. government employees and AI researchers.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington told Reuters that China was unaware of any of the companies involved in the effort and that Beijing “respects data privacy and security.” 

Why it Matters

U.S. government employees are considered prime targets for intelligence gathering by foreign intelligence services. Many federal employees hold security clearances or have access to sensitive government information that isn’t available to the public. 

For those reasons, foreign intelligence services sometimes approach federal employees and offer them money in exchange for information.

It’s illegal for federal employees to provide any sensitive or classified information to foreign intelligence services. But sometimes the financial gains can tempt people to take that risk. 

Federal workers who have been recently fired would be considered ideal recruiting targets because they have lost their source of income. Some may even hold a grudge against the Trump Administration for firing them.

The FBI indicated that Chinese intelligence operatives were instructed to recruit targets who were “dissatisfied with work or were having financial troubles.” Former federal workers who expressed such sentiments on social media would likely be potential targets for Chinese intelligence.

Even federal workers without access to classified information may have years of experience giving them in-depth knowledge of how certain U.S. agencies work. That knowledge would be considered valuable to foreign intelligence services. 

There is nothing new about foreign governments trying to recruit informants by offering them money. Foreign governments have been trying to recruit federal workers for information since the beginning of the Cold War after World War II.

U.S. intelligence services undertake similar operations abroad. What is new is the mass federal firings by the Trump Administration. This has overnight created a large pool of potential targets for foreign intelligence agencies. 

Another new feature is the way such recruitment is being done. In the past, intelligence operatives would either meet with potential informants in person or contact them via telephone. 

Today thanks to the internet, spies can recruit and converse with potential informants electronically. That makes it easier for such interactions to occur. 

Today, potential recruits can be lured with fake job ads which are posted online.

How it Affects You

The potential effort by China to recruit fired federal workers is part of a longstanding effort of governments to spy on each other. But the current tensions between the U.S. and China put these efforts in a different light. 

China’s Foreign Minister accused the United States of “acting with extreme suspicion” towards China, and thus far the Trump Administration has not commented on the matter.