Ministry of State Security (MSS) released the third installment of its serialized comic series on China’s do-everything app WeChat this Sunday.
MSS is now offering financial rewards to citizens who will inform the police about spies conducting espionage activity in China.
“The national security organs will make a comprehensive assessment to determine the level of the award and will give spiritual or material rewards to those who have played a particularly significant role in preventing, stopping or punishing acts that seriously jeopardize national security and who have made a particularly significant contribution will be given an award of more than RMB 100,000!” said MSS in a WeChat post on February 22. The reward is equivalent to around $14,000.
If you see something, say something.
That sounds like the Gestapo in Nazi-Germany back in the 1930s, or the Stasi in the former Eastern Germany after the second world war. Everyone spies on everyone. It’s just that they have a better tech now.
The person who is accusing you as a ‘foreign agent’ could be your neighbour, your colleague, even a family member. What society does that create?
Ahhh… McCarthyism. Usually doesn’t end up great when everyone suspects everyone else.