Chinese Communist Espionage

An Intelligence Primer

By: Peter Mattis, Matthew Brazil

Narrated by: David de Vries

This is the first work of its kind to employ hundreds of Chinese sources to explain the history and current state of Chinese Communist intelligence operations. It profiles the leaders, top spies, and important operations in the history of China's espionage organs and links to an extensive online glossary of Chinese language intelligence and security terms. Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil present an unprecedented look into the murky world of Chinese espionage both past and present, enabling a better understanding of how pervasive and important its influence is, both in China and abroad.

©2019 Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil (P)2020 Tantor

INTERESTING

The big takeaway is the extent of espionage engaged by China against the entire world!

Factual useful digestible

it's fine to read parts out of sequence and jump back and forth. A good companion to any history of communist china or biography of CCP figures.

Unrelenting Mangled Chinese Listening Unbearable

One would think that if you're writing a book targeting people working in or with China, you would find a narrator who understands at least the basics of Chinese Pinyin pronunciation. They even mention that they have included all the Chinese terms in their Chinese AND Pinyin forms in the book as well as having a downloadable glossary. The glossary is not full Pinyin - all tone markers are missing and the faux Chinese accent used to render Chinese names, place names, organisations and key events is cringeworthy at the least and may even cross the line of offensive. Never before have I heard a foreign language mangled with such certainty.

Whoever did the voice casting for this should probably reconsider some of their life choices and consider shifting careers. Perhaps American hubris thinking that near enough is good enough when it comes to 'foreign stuff'.

More like an encyclopedia than anything

Would recommend the economic chapter and the last summary chapter. Everything else reads more like encyclopedia entries.

Excellent reference guide.

High overall marks for scholarship. Otherwise not particularly riveting, and the narration is pretty rough.

CCP Espionage Explained

Memorable explanation of CCP Espionage and Counter espionage organs with a detailed historical background as it relates to techniques and intent. Short but detailed vignettes outlining criminally prosecuted cases.

Best as a hard copy

lots of facts and figures but lacking the narrative. Very useful as a reference but better in text form.

Interesting topic but very hard to listen to as an audiobook

It’s very hard to understand who the narrator is talking about because his pronunciation of Chinese names and words in general was so off.

The topic is a very interesting one though, and probably would make more sense when read instead of listened to.

Good Information, Terrible Chinese

Extremely distracting horrible pronunciation of Chinese, which made it very difficult to go look up persons and events of further research interests.

Good info, painful delivery

The information in this book is solid but I recommend getting it in print instead. The narrator does not speak Chinese and pronounces the Chinese words in the book (of which there are many) terribly. If you don't speak Chinese, you most likely won't notice and won't mind, but for those of us who do, skip the audiobook.