Spy Fears Prompt China to Censor Its Own Recruitment Drive
- Beijing purging terms portraying country as a menacing power
- Espionage concerns are opening a new front in trade dispute
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
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China’s government has forbidden state media from referencing its flagship talent recruitment program after a participant was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, according to people familiar with the situation.
The program, known as “Thousand Talents,” began in 2008 as a way for the government to attract the brightest Chinese people abroad to contribute to innovative sectors in China’s economy. Censorship of the term follows other recent orders to ban mentions of “China-U.S. trade war,” the #MeToo movement, a vaccine scandal and a faulty peer-to-peer money-lending program, according to the people, who asked not to be identified.