Xi’s Security Obsession Turns Ordinary Citizens into Spy Hunters

Students at Beihang University, an aeronautics institute under US sanctions for its military links, were even asked to play an interactive training game, called Who's The Spy? "In what special way will the college students around you reinvigorate national security?" the Ministry of State Security wrote on its new WeChat account. As President Xi Jinping throws up a forcefield of security controls to repel perceived foreign threats to Communist Party rule, Beijing's message to the public is spooks are everywhere - not just universities. The push comes after Xi chaired a National Security Council meeting in May that stressed the importance of "Extreme-case scenario" thinking - a phrase the ruling party had previously reserved for describing natural disaster preparedness. Spy Agency Since the Communist Party unified its intelligence arms to found the Ministry of State Security in the 1980s, the organization has stayed out of public sight. The obsession with national security is fundamentally linked to protecting the Communist Party's future. State Security Minister Chen Yixin in July wrote that national security was about political security. "The core of political security is regime security," he added.