A comical effort by China’s intelligence agency

FOREIGN SPIES are lurking everywhere! So says the Chinese government. Officials were ruffled by the CIA’s claim, made last year, that it was rebuilding its spy networks in China a decade after most of its sources disappeared. But China’s reaction seems defined more by paranoia than vigilance. The national intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), wants the entire population to be on the lookout for spies.

To improve public awareness, the ministry has launched an online comic strip called “Shenyin Special Investigation Squad”. It will feature heart-pounding action, say China’s spooks. The first instalment, released on January 7th, shows the capture and interrogation of a blond-haired man, seemingly foreign, who is suspected of breaking the country’s counter-espionage law.