Eyes and Ears: Secret Agent Work in Cold War China

This essential primary-source reader brings together documents collected over decades of research into security agency tradecraft and Chinese Cold War-era human intelligence. Michael Schoenhals' expert translation of the texts teases out meanings from memoranda, decodes marginal notes from senior officers, and unpacks the hastily scribbled communications of covert human assets. Together, these sources trace the resilience of covert human intelligence as an institution, even when faced with revelations of major misconduct and calls for its reform. With editorial introductions providing valuable context, this collection offers an informed interpretation of the domestic recruitment and running of agents that sheds critical new light on Chinese security agencies' intelligence gathering operations and capacity building during the Cold War.

Table of Contents:
Preface; Part I. Agent Recruitment: 1. The target's own story; Part II. Capacity Building: 2. A director of public security remembers; 3. Developing doctrinal terminology; 4. Trial and error; 5. Big brother dispenses operativnyy experience; Part III. Best Practice: 6. Agent files: management and utilisation regulations; 7. Recruitment: one template and two profiles; 8. Agent termination; 9. Tradecraft dos and don'ts; Part IV. From the Agent Work File: 10. Raw intelligence: all quiet in the northeast linen mill; 11. Welfaring agent 107: 'She now has misgivings…'; 12. Tasking agent 371: active measures; 13. Debriefing agent 594: monitoring campus unrest; Part V. From the Agent Personal File: 14. Operational brief: on the recruitment of Yang X; 15. Yang X's Offer of service; 16. Private correspondence monitored; 17. Give and take: apologies and a nanny; 18. Agent validation: professional and 'leftist'; 19. Declining performance? A two-day brush-up course; Part VI. Component Chiefs: Feedback and Direction: 20. On a case officer's contact reports: 'why never anything negative?'; 21. On courses of action proposed; 22. Whose collection requirements should enjoy priority?; Part VII. Crisis Management: 23. Agent work: findings and recommendations of an inquiry: 24. Opponents: 'shitting and pissing on the heads of the people'; 25. Proponents: 'an indispensable operational resource'; 26. The government advocates a return to the status quo ante; 27. Deconfliction: provisional guidelines on informant capacity building; Glossary; Notes; Index.

About the Author :
Michael Schoenhals is Professor Emeritus of Chinese at the Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University. He is author of Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics (1992), Mao's Last Revolution (with Roderick MacFarquhar) (2006), and Spying for the People: Mao's Secret Agents, 1949–1967 (2013).

Review :
'This is a unique collection of first-hand documents from the clandestine inner workings of the Chinese secret police and their network of informers. Skilfully introduced, Michael Schoenhals takes us into the abysses and banalities of communist persecution under Mao. The underbelly of Stalinist civilisation – Chinese style. Anyone interested in secret police and their informers will find a wealth of comparative material in this collection.' Jens Gieseke, Leibniz-Centre for Contemporary History 'Eyes and Ears draws on discarded documents to describe how the state recruited people to spy on their neighbors in Cold War China. Everyday surveillance is by turns humdrum, tedious, chilling, and occasionally hilarious. Schoenhals illuminates China's particularities without ever letting us forget that these practices are common to all modern states.' Gail Hershatter, University of California, Santa Cruz 'This volume makes an indispensable contribution to a much neglected area of study. No serious student of Cold War China can afford to overlook it.' R. Gerald Hughes, Aberystwyth University