China reportedly killed and imprisoned as many as 20 CIA sources

(Image credit: Greg Baker/Getty Images)

published 21 May 2017

The Chinese government killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 informants working with the CIA between 2010 and 2012, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing two former senior U.S. officials who remained unnamed. The CIA declined to comment for the Times story.

Five years later, it is still not certain how the sources were identified, only that their grim fates significantly crippled American intelligence efforts in China. Some in the intelligence community suspect a mole, the Times reported, while others believe Chinese hackers could have breached CIA systems.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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