China calls CIA videos 'absurd' attempt to recruit spies

China accused the US Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday of making an "absurd" attempt to recruit Chinese citizens via videos posted to social media.

China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) said the placement of what amounted to job advertisements on social media platform X was an "amateurish gambit" to convince people to spy for the Americans.

"These two painstakingly crafted 'job ads,' riddled with clumsy rhetoric and slanderous claims, lay bare the absurd logic and paranoid delusions of American intelligence agencies," the ministry said in a statement posted to its official WeChat account.

"Once again, the self-proclaimed 'world's top intelligence power' has turned itself into an international laughingstock through its baffling incompetence," it added.

CIA director John Ratcliffe said that the videos posted last month — which implored the sharing of state secrets — were aimed at "recruiting Chinese officials to help the US."

China condemned the posts at the time as "naked political provocation."

The MSS vowed on Wednesday to "resolutely protect the nation's strategic interests and core secrets."

It warned the CIA that "any attempt to incite betrayal among the Chinese people is doomed to fail, and any plot to infiltrate China for intelligence will prove futile."