"very opportunistic, temporary and infrequent" are the fundamentals of Chinese espionage.

Here's a xerox out of Nick Eftimiades "Chinese Intelligence Operations." It's an org chart for one part of the MSS. Eftimiades has about seven of these in that book.

Compare and contrast with SOCOM:

Compare and contrast with the CIA:

There are two approaches towards intelligence gathering by the Chinese, one with regards to Chinese nationals, and one with regards to foreigners. With Chinese nationals, the basic approach is "you'll do what we tell you or your family will suffer." This goes all the way down to "you have booked a vacation abroad to Milwaukee, take lots of pictures at this brewery and give them to us or your family will suffer." It goes all the way down to "since you're a traitor to your family by taking a semester abroad, you will attend every meeting you can to opportunistically talk about how great China is." It doesn't go much higher, though, because the Chinese do not consider other cultures to be cultures. Thus, they don't embed in other cultures, they don't work their way into other cultures. Their methods are entirely opportunistic. On the other hand, foreigners are plied with largesse in exchange for information, which often includes booking people into luxury hotels where they are under constant audiovisual surveillance. Rarely, if ever, blackmail. Fundamentally, "ask a lot of questions and break promises" is the methodology. I have a buddy who was wined and dined for six weeks about cinematography because a Chinese company wanted to come out with rip-offs of American equipment but needed an insider's view to make sure they understood what they were even looking at. I myself was flattered relentlessly as soon as I displayed any acumen for casting and metal printing... and dropped like a hot rock as soon as I revealed any skepticism of the Chinese ability to deliver. I honestly think that Anycubic canceled a product based on my reaction to it.

Tik Tok is a quintessential Chinese intelligence program. They took an American app that couldn't profit, subsidized it, and use it to get into everyone's phone. Do they need everyone's phone? No. Do they know whose phone they need? No. But if it comes in handy they can flip a switch. Compare and contrast to how the (US-trained) Saudi Intelligence agency got to Khashoggi: they hit at least one of his casual friends and at least one of his fiancee's casual friends with Pegasus because they knew he was too cagey to get hit with Pegasus. The US and Israel will target two or three key guys and be surgical about it. The Chinese and Iranians will shotgun (China: TikTok on every phone; Iran, handfuls of jump drives with malware scattered about the Pentagon parking lot).

Long-term? I think their long-term plan was to not get caught. Our long-term plan with the U2 was to not get shot down. Even after that our long-term plan was faster-higher-sneakier (A-12/SR-71) even in teeth of the USSR's faster-higher-sneakier response. Which do you think is easier, a plane that will go Mach 3 or a missile that will go Mach 4? We built 'em anyway.