>True enough... But how many Chinese are learning English at a young age? How many Americans are learning Chinese... period? The CIA doesn't even have enough Arabic speaking agents because they are still stuck with people trained for spying on Russia.
>
>Unless American's want to start learning Chinese and the same rate they learn English we are going to have an uphill battle in the spy game.

Given the American population's level of addiction to learning languages... good luck there :).

I guess the only good source of agents would be the disgruntled people of Hong Kong or Taiwan, though they probably speak wrong dialect. I think Khrushchev (should be pronounced Hruschchov, actually) had a good solution to this, when he told Kennedy "you pay my spies, I pay your spies, you pay your spies, I pay my spies... why don't we tell each other everything and eliminate the cost?".