When government departments began sending people abroad, they sought to prepare the pioneers for every eventuality. A 2002 guidebook called The Latest Must-Read for Personnel Going Abroad warned that, beyond Chinese borders, “foreign intelligence agencies and other enemy forces” wage a “battle for hearts and minds” using “reactionary propaganda to topple the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.” If a traveler on official business encountered a journalist, the authors offered a strategy: “Answer in a simple way; avoid the truth and emphasize the empty.”
