Deconfliction: Provisional Guidelines on Informant Capacity Building

These guidelines regarding the recruitment and use of agents (here referred to as the development of informants) show how, after years of uncertainty, one operational component responsible for the security of critical infrastructure responded to the demands of China’s central government for a revival of agent work. Subjects covered in the guidelines include the principles and demands to guide recruitment, the scope and qualifications of targets, deactivation, authority to recruit, running, record keeping, and more. Some minor modifications aside, there is no alternative paradigm at work here, and what the guidelines propose differs little from what had been the case prior to 1967. As far as HUMINT is concerned, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1969) had now become something more akin to an aberration than, as originally intended, ‘a new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country, a deeper and more extensive stage’.