Alex Lo

My Take | Hong Kong is a perfect target for CIA

A new study published in Foreign Affairs journal may shed light on how influence operations including covert manipulation of local media could have been carried out by the US intelligence agency

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The Hong Kong Observation Wheel and Central Harbourfront seen from City Hall in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: Winson Wong

Alex Lo

Published: 9:43pm, 23 Jun 2020Updated: 10:28pm, 23 Jun 2020

One key justification for the new national security law has been the need to counter foreign interference. The opposition and protest movement used to deny any foreign links. More recently, though, some of their key representatives haven’t bothered to hide their connections, as they openly consort, most notably, with the United States to threaten sanctions and other punishments against Hong Kong and the rest of China.

But such are overt cooperation with a foreign power. What about covert operations? Well, it’s hard to know, since by definition, they are hidden from view. However, a new article in Foreign Affairs may shed light on the issue.

For his research, David Shimer, a doctoral candidate in international relations at the University of Oxford, interviewed many current and former CIA operatives, including a former director, Leon Panetta.

Panetta admitted to Shimer that the CIA had conducted media manipulation and other influence operations in places where the US was working against their governments.

“He said he never ‘got into’ altering votes directly or spreading disinformation,” Shimer wrote in the study, titled “When the CIA interferes in foreign elections: a modern-day history of American covert action”.