"There is an old Chinese proverb: 'Life is like a game of chess, changing with each move. And to win the game you must often sacrifice your pawns.'"

If you weren't seeing this oriental wisdom on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) website, you probably would have believed you were watching a cliché Hollywood movie featuring Chinese kung fu characteristics. But it turns out to be the opening lines of a 28-minute video released recently by the FBI.

Titled "Game of Pawns," the docudrama tells the true story of Glenn Duffie Shriver, an American student serving four years in jail for espionage. Some 10 years ago, he moved to Shanghai after finishing college. He took a large amount of money from people affiliated with the Chinese government to apply to join US intelligence agencies. He was arrested in 2010 and sentenced for conspiring to provide national defense information to the Chinese.

Through this docudrama, the FBI wants to warn American students traveling overseas to "recognize when they're being targeted and/or recruited," as it said in a statement on its website.

However, this "well-intentioned" video has been mocked by the US media. Time magazine thought the producers behind it are "unforgivably naïve." The Washington Post called it "strikingly cheesy" and "low-budget."

Similarly, the National Journal felt uncomfortable as the film pretended to be shot in Shanghai but was actually shot in Chinatown in Washington, which the Wall Street Journal believed was an attempt to save taxpayer money.

Currently, most accusations against China from the US focus on the cyber-espionage threat from Beijing, while the FBI docudrama reminds people that China may still use obsolete spying methods. This stereotypical view of China shows the American political mentality of being hostile to China and anxiety over China's "intelligence threat."

Last year, a federal court dropped charges against a Chinese scientist who had worked for NASA and was accused of taking sensitive documents to China.

Congressman Frank Wolf had publicly insisted that the scientist was a potential security threat given information from his whistle-blowers, while some observers in the US criticized Wolf's overreaction that would "cause more harm than good to America's best interests."

Ironically, the FBI's release of the video took place on the same day as the Pulitzer prize was awarded for stories about US National Security Agency surveillance. The US clandestine monitoring program PRISM and other myriad surveillance approaches have been exposed to the whole world. Then comes the question: Do Americans really need to be taught how not to be involved in spying?