Turtles for the Traitors
Last month, an analysis by China Digital Times (CDT), an outlet that tracks Chinese media and censorship, found that the definition of the activities of “external hostile forces” (境外势力) applied by China’s Ministry of State Security has widened to include the most routine activities of daily life. The study of the expanding scope of this decades-old phrase, which has long cast perceived threats to its rule as the work of foreign infiltration, points to a regime obsessed with potential dissent and espionage.
The review, published on June 23 by CDT, examined three years of posts from the official WeChat account of China’s Ministry of State Security (国家安全部), or MSS, the country’s intelligence and domestic security agency. The MSS opened its official WeChat account just over three years ago, in April 2023.
CDT’s review counted more than 30 everyday scenarios the ministry has cast as channels for infiltration. They included intelligence gathering through dating apps, Bluetooth earbuds, paid photography jobs at military and technology expos, employment ads, and study abroad opportunities. Bizarrely, the list even mentioned the possible use of sea turtles fitted with tracking sensors, which were suspected of relaying ocean data to foreign intelligence agents.
The clearest example of the application of this overstretched definition came on April 28, 2026, when the ministry accused two foreign-funded groups of stoking the trend of “lying flat” (躺平), a term referring to the choice by exhausted young Chinese to opt out of the country’s competitive work culture and instead live a laid-back lifestyle. One group, the MSS said, had funded media and think tanks pushing the narrative that “striving equals being exploited” (奋斗=被剥削), while another had bankrolled “lying-flat influencers” who produced videos with slogans like “lying flat is justice” (躺平即正义).
According to CDT, the MSS post marked the first time the ministry had treated a social mood, not concrete acts of espionage, as a security threat.
The phrase “hostile forces” dates to 1948, when the People’s Daily first used a version of it, “class hostile forces” (阶级敌对势力), translating a Soviet-era text. Mao Zedong revived it as “hostile class” (敌对阶级) during the 1957 Anti-Rightist Movement, and it resurfaced at sensitive moments in the decades that followed, including after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and the 1999 banning of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Over the past decade, the phrase has been used to cast Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests as the outcome of foreign meddling.
