Is this... not a normal practice for all intelligence services of the world?
Emigrants always have ties to the originland.
Emigrants always have ties to the originland.
China can coerce it's diaspora through their family ties and social circle back home[1]. That isn't normal and is very difficult to pull off in democratic countries.
1. https://www.propublica.org/article/operation-fox-hunt-how-ch...
Look at the Assange fiasco for example, or Guantanamo Bay, or the use of rendition to allied states by the CIA, or sitting in on torture conducted by allies (recently in Yemen), etc.
Not to mention the complete disregard of international law when it comes to Israel, and in the same, hypocritical breath, repeatedly insisting that the Russians must follow international law (which they should).
The typical country is closer to Cambodia or Honduras not a world power. China can leverage it, but most countries aren’t China.
I think by the very nature of what’s going on you’re demonstratedly wrong on this point.
America has a vast economy, huge military R&D spending, massive foreign entanglements etc, and it’s arguable if the CIA is worth its budget. I’m not arguing it should be defunded, but there’s been significant debate even within the intelligence community around the topic for a bunch of different reasons.
Scale that down to a developing country with 10 million people and human intelligence gathering within foreign countries is almost guaranteed to be a waste of time and money.