So this wasn’t even like, espionage? Did they literally just take reams of highly confidential paper to what sounds like a second hand book store? It reads like they didn’t know what they had in their hands
they probably just felt it was a waste to destroy the paper lol
If it's anything like Egypt, old papers and books can usually be sold to scrap sellers for pocket change and they're sometimes resold to falafel restaurants to wrap the falafels in.
I assume this is a similar thing in China but replace falafel with the Chinese street food equivalent.