I interviewed Nick Eftiamedes backintheday for a script. Prolly 2002 or so. Read the book, which was eight years old at the time. None of this is new.
Basic Chinese intelligence approach is to remind everyone traveling abroad that they're a Chinese citizen and if they're not doing it for China, they're not a good citizen and their family and friends will be reminded of that. Chinese citizens are given opportunities to prove their good standing ("go tour the Hershey factory and take a lot of pictures") and provided examples of other citizens who need reminding of the importance of China ("Zihao should be reminded to stop bringing shame to his country and family"). In 1994, the CIA estimated that the MSS was a tenth as capable as the CIA but had 20x the operatives.
The Western intelligence paradigm is "there's spies, and there's normies" while the Chinese intelligence paradigm is "everyone you can trust will spy, everyone you can't is an enemy."
This is a big deal in Australia. Our third largest export, at least before the pandemic, was education, and by far the biggest proportion of that export income was coming from Chinese university students. One does not need to look hard to find anxiety in the academic community about the unspoken pressure to ensure curricula does not trigger the Chinese student cohort. A teacher friend of mine was instructed to remove a quote by the Dalai Lama from a presentation on ethics.